Color Foil Nail Makeup

Sally Hansen Color Foil Nail Makeup [160 - Sky-Fi] Review

By Maychiri's Thoughts - September 28, 2025

The first of ,not one, not two – but NINE – Sally Hansen nail polishes for this week; this is the Sally Hansen Color Foil Nail Makeup, in the shade 160/Sky-Fi!

 

What even is ‘Nail Makeup’??? How is that different to nail polish? Whatever the difference may be, this nail polish looked sick! In the best way! But why did I buy 3 Sally Hansen nail polishes at the same time in the first place (I bought 3, including this one, when I bought this nail polish)? Well, I originally planned to only get one, because Notino had a cool promo where Coty brands – specifically, Max Factor, Bourjois, Rimmel and Sally Hansen – had a huge discount. So, my plan was to get one of each brand, to have a sort of charcuterie board of all the brands. That’s easy to say, but it’s harder to actually pick the items! For Sally Hansen, I couldn’t just get one item, not when there were plenty of really cool and/or pretty colours to choose from! So I decided to get this metallic, chrome-effect nail polish, because isn’t that awesome? I had a hard time deciding which colour to pick, but in the end, I decided that a lavender-like purple would be a great choice. After all, lavender purple always looks great on my skin. Now, I have heard certain things about this nail polish, that it doesn’t have the best longevity and that it has problems... guess the only way to see whether that is true is to actually test it out – so let’s do just that!
 

 

Packaging: large rectangular bottle with slightly curved sides. The entire bottle is so reflective that it is basically a mirror, which sells the chrome finish quite well. But, one glaring problem with such a reflective bottle is that it gets covered in fingerprints in no time. So it needs regular cleaning to keep it smudge-free. And this reflective finish makes it harder to read anything on the bottle. The text is black, but that doesn’t help much when the reflections get in the way. The front has a coloured section that is very close to the colour of the actual nail polish, so you can easily judge how it would look on you. Normally, you’d be able to see the nail polish in the bottle, but here, the bottle is opaque for some reason, so you can only go off this coloured section. 
 
 
 
 
The cap is very wide, so the overall shape is quite retro, quite 60’s-like. The cap is black and it closes very tightly. There is a small sticker on the cap with the name of the shade, but instead of being the same colour as the nail polish, it is iridescent. Cool touch! The bottle doesn’t feel as heavy as it could be, honestly. Also, there is a little shaker ball inside that helps mix the nail polish evenly while shaking the bottle. I don’t often see this! So, overall, quite a cool bottle! It definitely looks futuristic! 
 
 
 

 
 
Ingredients: nothing nourishing; 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). It smells like most other nail polishes; a bit more vinegary though. The expiration date is 30 months after opening.
 
 
 
Colour: this is definitely the best colour of the bunch! It’s a vibrant metallic steely lavender that is so metallic that it actually does look like chrome! It is so cool and futuristic! It doesn’t have any warm tones in it, so it is a very cool-toned purple, which isn’t that common. It is so cool-toned that it almost looks blue! I think this is because the shine is a steel blue so it overall looks bluish, even though the base is more purple than blue. It is a very loud colour, very in-your-face, especially with this finish! I love it, and I especially love how it pops on my skin. Although, I am sure it would look good on darker skin as well. The steely blue shine is so intense that it makes the entire nail look steely blue instead of purple. Only in darker lighting does the lavender start to show properly. 
 
 
 
 
Brush: very narrow and long flat brush, with a more circular cross-section. This brush, at first, appeared to be quite high quality, but it isn’t really easy to use. Sure, it does apply a thick layer of pigment, but it is hard to make it perfectly even, and it is horribly messy around the sides of nails. I tried to be precise, I really did, but I still had a horrible mess all around. Not good. I just think that the brush is too narrow and long for its own good. I feel like it would be better if it were slightly wider. Or if it was flatter.
 
 
 
 
 
Hmm, this nail polish feels... Idk, not rubbery, no. It is smooth for sure, but it just feels kinda like plastic? It doesn’t feel particularly luxe, it just feels kinda cheap. The formula is also pretty thick but it doesn’t look or feel thick on nails, somehow. It feels like a plasticy film on nails, which, sure, is mostly what nail polish is, but most other nail polishes manage to avoid feeling like plastic. Also, while this formula is easy to apply evenly, it is very difficult to avoid having very visible brushstrokes. This is not uncommon for metallic formulas, but it is annoying. I really don’t like this formula, it really doesn’t feel like it’s going to last long at all. 
 
 
 
 
 
Also, excuse me??? “For best results, use without base for top coat”? Uhhh... this does not bode well. “Touch up as needed”... yeah, this sounds bad. If they are already suggesting touch ups on the bottle itself, then it cannot in any case have good longevity. Sigh. I am not looking forward to seeing how it chips off...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Woah! One coat is already pretty thick and completely opaque! The colour is vibrant as well. It is quite evenly spread, but it has prominent brushstrokes; no matter how careful you are, they will be visible. But this doesn’t actually detract from the high shine finish or the cool colour, as the brushstrokes are only visible from up-close. Now, I would definitely leave it at just one coat as it looks great like this, but the bottle says to apply two coats so I shall. And... well, that didn’t make any sort of difference. One or two coats, it looks pretty much the same. If anything, the brushstrokes are slightly more visible with two coats. It is still even and completely opaque, and it doesn’t feel too thick, so that’s nice. 
 
 
 
But it is definitely starting to look thick, so don’t apply more than two coats. The texture is stunning! It is extremely shiny, with a very metallic finish. It isn’t really reflective, just very, very metallic. It is also kinda grainy, which is common with these sort of metallic textures. I don’t mind this, as the extremely high shine finish helps conceal it most of the time – seriously, it is so bright that the base colour often gets lost! Very cool, very sci-fi – or should I say, Sky-Fi?
 
 
 
Longevity is frankly utterly rubbish. I knew going in that it doesn’t have good longevity, but I still believed in it. In vain, though. I knew that “touch up as needed” spelled bad news. I just didn’t think that it would start chipping less than 24 hours after applying it. Literally! Like, I already had big chips on the second day, and it only went downhill from there. Literally everything makes it chip, even just lightly touching the nail from a wrong angle. Let alone trying to actually use the nails! It is so horrible. And they also recommend not using any base or top coat, and the lack of either isn’t helping matters. By the end of the 5th day, it was almost completely destroyed. 
 
 
 
Funnily enough, a hair wash did not cause a lot of damage... because it was already on its last legs. But if it wasn’t, I have zero doubts that it would be destroyed since everything else destroys it as well. Ugh, I did not need this. But I had warnings in advance, I just chose to ignore them. Shame, this is such a cool finish but that’s useless when it has zero longevity.
 
 
But at least it’s easy to remove. I did not have to rub a lot to remove it; it was really just a few swipes and that’s it. And it doesn’t make nails yellower. If anything, they may be slightly whiter than before!
 
The shades in the Color Foil range
  
In conclusion, well this was a waste of time, sadly. I was really looking forward to this futuristic nail polish, but what I got in the end is just rubbish. I cannot say that I wasn’t warned ahead of time... I saw what others had to say about this polish and it was sadly exactly what I experienced as well. I knew it would not have good longevity as soon as I read “Touch up as needed” on the bottle. And that it is best used without base/top coats. Like, wtf? But I sincerely did not think it would start to chip within like 14 hours! That is atrocious! I tried to get clean photos, but it started chipping even before I started doing my makeup that day, so what you see is what happens when a nail polish has such horrible durability that it cannot handle literally anything. Not even touching the sides. Let alone trying to open something and slightly touching the packaging with the nails. So what good is it that it doesn’t get scratched up a lot, if it chips off massively anyways?? Guess I should have seen this coming when the formula felt weirdly plasticy and thin and cheap. Like, it is thick, but it feels like a thin film on my nails. And that’s after 2 coats! Mind you, the second coat did not improve matters one bit, so it really does not matter whether you apply one or two, like the bottle says. But there is good to be found here. The colour is absolutely stunning! It’s this cool steely lavender with a steely blue reflection, so it looks lavender in darker lighting, and steel blue in brighter lighting. The metallic shine is so fricking intense that the purple gets lost in it as soon as any light hits it! It is so futuristic, so awesome! And I don’t even mind the brushstrokes! I feel like the graininess of the formula, and the brushstrokes, add to the SF-like vibe that this nail polish has in spades. However, this is all moot anyways since it will crumble in a day or two. Argh. Not a good start to the Sally Hansen nail polishes for this week... but it’s also not the first Sally Hansen to have issues. Hmm. I am starting to worry somewhat about the rest of them... hope they are not as horrible as this one. But do I regret buying this nail polish? Nah, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. It is atrociously bad, but now I know to avoid the Color Foil range. Silver linings and all. But no, I will not give this nail polish a recommendation – not ever! Steer clear of it, there are plenty of better quality metallics out there. This is just rubbish.
 
 
 
Rating: 2/10
 
 
Would buy again? Hell NO




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