Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Polish Review

"It's magnetic? WHOA!"

I was awestruck when I first heard about Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Polish. I ran a search for photos of it on Tumblr, and it looked amazing. All the pictures featured a beautiful, swirley line pattern horizontally across the nails.

Not only was the look appealing, but what caused it seemed downright cool! Apparently, the polish contains magnetic particles that move around to form that design when you put a magnet over it (when it's still wet).

So I set out to get me some of this revolutionary nail polish!

Here's everything I liked and disliked about the product, from the color and price to the final design and more.

Color Variety

The Magnetic Nail Polish comes in eight colors: Golden Conduct, Purple Potion, Silver Elements, Kinetic Copper, Red-y Response, Ionic Indigo, Electric Emerald, and Graphite Gravy.

Eight colors is quite a variety. Can you think of any other colors you'd like to see included in that collection? I sure couldn't. Plus, they all seem to be bold and vibrant colors. I wanted them all!

After much time was spent trying to pick a color, I eventually settled on green. It is my favorite color, and green goes with a lot of the clothing I own. It's the only color I've tried so far.

Pricing

I wasn't too psyched about the pricing. At my local Target, they're $8.99 each. I normally would NOT pay this much for nail polish (or just about any other beauty product, for that matter), but I really was dying to try this particular one. So I got it, anyway.

How does it look?

When I took it home and tried it, I was so excited! I followed all of the instructions very carefully. Here's what the process calls for:

1. Apply a clear base coat on all your nails. Let dry.
2. Apply first coat of magnetic nail polish on all your nails, let dry.
3. Apply another coat of magnetic nail polish to one nail (Tip: make sure this one's thick. The thicker it is, the better the design shows up).
4. Immediately after applying the second coat, place the magnet over your nail. Hold it there for 10 seconds (moving it around a little to make sure it covers your whole nail).
5. Repeat for all the rest of your nails. Let dry.
6. Apply a final clear coat on top.

I took pictures of every step, which are on the right. I also took a video of the step involving the magnet, just to give everyone a clear idea of what is required.

What you see in the pictures is my second try. The first time, the design appeared as just this messy, dark line across my nails. Even the second time around, I had to redo several of my nails because the design came out a complete mess. If you didn't know what kind of nail polish it was, you would think I had done a really bad job painting my nails. It looked like the color was badly uneven on my nails.

After several re-dos and a lot of time spent, I finally got my nails to look how they do in the picture on the right (The last thumbnail labeled "End result"). You can see the stripes going horizontally across my nails. When the light hits them, the stripes have almost a 3D effect. I have to admit that after all was said and done, it was pretty cool. I just had to go through way too much trouble to get there!

The Final Verdict

I give this product three out of five stars. The idea of it is really cool, and the design looks awesome, but it's just too difficult to make it look like it's supposed to. What I'm trying to say is, the results are not at all consistent. On one nail you might get a perfect design, on another you might get just a blob of dark color that looks awful, and on another you might get absolutely nothing.

Even if you can get the design looking great on the first try, it's still very time consuming, having to apply the magnet to each individual nail. Not to mention the time you will likely have to spend re-doing the nails that don't come out so great.

I will never buy this product again. To me, it's just too much trouble, and it's extremely frustrating. It's certainly not worth nine dollars. Honestly, I wouldn't even buy it again for half that. But hey, if you have the money to spend and a whole lot of patience, have at it.

While I'm very disappointed, I'm glad I gave it a try.