Nail Polish

Sally Hansen Xtreme Color™ Nail Color [353 - Daisy Dukes] Review

By Maychiri's Thoughts - September 28, 2025

Ah, time for yet another Sally Hansen nail polish I don’t now why I keep torturing myself like this ! Never mind that! This is the Sally Hansen Xtreme Color™ Nail Color, in the shade 353/Daisy Dukes!
 
 
... bikinis on top! / Sun-kissed skin / so hot, we’ll melt your popsicle!...  Ahem. Excuse me, but this is quite literally the only thing on my mind whenever I see that name. Ah, much different times back then... sigh. But let’s be positive! And bright, just like this awesome yellow nail polish! Well, ‘awesome’ as in, the colour is bloody awesome! Not my usual colour to buy, but Notino had a special promo with Coty brands, specifically, Bourjois, Max Factor, Rimmel and Sally Hansen. The discounts were insane! So I hatched a plan: I shall buy one item from each of those brands, to have a sort of charcuterie board, right? And I was planning to just buy one Sally Hansen nail polish... and then I saw this one. Oh, this is one sunny and bright colour, perfect for spring and summer! I have to admit, it was the name of the shade that drew me in, as soon as I saw it, Katy Perry’s California Gurls started playing in my head and it stayed there for days! Until I got the order delivered, in fact. And every time I looked at the name. Even aside from that promo, I would have gotten around to trying out the Xtreme Color range, as I am still in the process of trying out one nail polish from each of Sally Hansen’s ranges, so might as well try it out now, no? Perhaps I should have gotten one of the neutrals instead of this cheerful yellow; I heard that this shade in particular is very problematic. Yikes! Ah well, it was less than a euro after the discount, so whatever. I am hoping that it is better than the previous Sally Hansen’s because... sigh, I just can’t catch a break with them. Always something wrong. Ah, let’s see what this polish is like, and if it is better than what I read!
 
 
 
Packaging: rounded tall bottle. It’s for sure a different kind of shape for a bottle. I like the rounded part near the cap, it’s so playful! Though, with this colour, it is kind of giving “radioactive liquid container” haha! Especially with that giant X in the middle! What I don’t like, though, is that they used white text for this colour. It’s literally unreadable. Even with a camera, it was hard to make it stand out from the bright yellow. Not good design, although white is gentler with this colour than black... but the cap is black. Make it make sense. The cap closes extremely tightly, so at least the nail polish won’t dry out too soon. The X is for how eXtreme the colour is! Which is fitting with this extremely bright yellow. There aren’t any details on the bottle, really, aside from that X. Very basic. 
 
 
 
Source: www.sallyhansen.com
 
Ingredients: nothing nourishing; not entirely 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene) since it does contain Tosylamide/Formaldehyde resin. Also, it contains camphor in significant amounts, so if you are sensitive to it, be careful. Not a promising ingredients list, not going to lie. Looks a bit cheap. The scent is like most nail polishes, though there is something slightly camphor-y about it as well. It’s a bit sharp to the nose, though this may just be my nose being hypersensitive this time of the month. I tend to smell things I never notice the rest of the month, one more symptom of PMDD, gah. It’s not as fun as you might think, as it causes nausea when I am near even remotely intense scents – like this one. Anyways, the expiration date is 30 months after opening.
 
 
 
This is such a happy kind of bright yellow! It’s so uplifting! But it is not really that special, it’s just lemon yellow for the most part. It’s also quite similar to Pantone’s Blazing yellow and Lemon verbena, though it may be just a tad less vibrant than either of those. This is a classic kind of yellow with few orange pigments in it, which makes it very bright and noticeable. There are some greenish pigments though, which make it a bit neon. But it is also not that garishly intense; it has some sweetness to it because it has white undertones as well. See, even basic colours can have a lot of depth! I actually love how this colour looks on me, it is awesome on pale skin, and that’s a huge thing because yellow colours can look a bit odd on me sometimes. 
 
 
 
 
But this one just looks lovely. Although, what does this have to do with daisy dukes? Aren't those extremely short denim shorts – thus, most often, blue? Guess they are just going with the Katy Perry California Gurls reference, which, to be fair, had one of the dancers dressed in yellow short denim shorts. Huh, I think I solved the puzzle! Huzzah!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This is such a weird brush. It is very narrow and very long, so it doesn’t spread as wide as most other nail polishes. It’s just too small. And no, this small size does not help make it more precise, in fact, this brush is incredibly messy around the edges of nails. I was trying to be careful but I still ended up with such a goddamn mess all over. And the brush feels kinda stiff and just low quality overall. It picks up way too much pigment, though, so you will have to tap off some of it. It then applies the nail polish so badly that it’s hard to believe how they could make such a trash brush. Or trash formula, for that matter. 
 
 
 
Gah, what is this formula?? It is horrendous! It is thin and watery but still feels weirdly creamy, which is just odd. It is not runny, though. But man does it apply disgustingly unevenly! Look, I was trying to be neat, but my nails look atrocious with a single coat. It's like this formula just flat out refuses to spread across the nails because it bunches up in places. And it’s got that same weird drying that Good. Kind. Pure. had, where it looks like it will dry down into a matte finish, while not having such a texture in the end. Very weird. Very unpleasant. And it feels so, so very cheap. Just trash. Ugh. I hate it. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Also, “streak-free formula”... in what universe??! What a lie... oh, and, to get a somewhat normal, even coat, you need to apply a super thick layer, which very quickly becomes goopy and barely usable. I had to fix one nail (well, more than one, really, but that one was majorly uneven) and I ended up with such a grotesquely thick layer; without it, it was horribly streaky and patchy. Just a pain to use overall, not at all fun – unlike the colour. But that cannot fix a garbage formula, now can it?
 
 
 
 
 
What the hell?! Oh god, one coat is absolutely disgusting. No way to wear it like this, it is not fit for public showing (yet here I am showing it). I am baffled, like, what the hell went wrong? Yeah, the brush is trash, and the formula is even more trash, but for it to look this bad? This is actually a rare sight. It is all blotchy and uneven and there are spots that look like they have no polish there at all. So much for “streak-free”... this is streak city. Awful. Disgusting. And the only way to make it at all even is to apply a huge blob of nail polish, which is never a good idea, especially not with such a creamy formula. I applied a second coat and, well, things did improve, but not as much as they should. I have no idea how it STILL manages to be patchy in places even with two thick coats. 
 
 
Ugh, I just give up. And they suggest you apply 2-3 coats – 3?! It’s already gummy and goopy and awful with two!! No way in hell that applying a third coat would fix the problems. If anything, it would create more issues because the thicker a nail polish is applied, the more likely it is to chip because it isn’t connected to the nail but rather to the previous hella thick layer of polish. Do yourself a favour, just ignore what they say; apply two thicker layers and just deal with it still being somewhat uneven. There’s no helping it. And I know that yellow can be a tricky colour and that it can sometimes apply unevenly, but why, then, do I have plenty of other yellow nail polishes that do, in fact, apply evenly, hmm? 
 
 
 
But hey, at least it is fully opaque with two coats... big whoop. The texture is quite glossy, which is nice on this yellow. Shame about the polish being crap, then.
 
 
Oh great, it hasn’t even been 24 hours since I painted my nails and there’s already a chip. It continued to chip but by bit every day until it was time to remove it. Oh, and yes, a hair wash destroyed it completely, as there were huge parts missing from my nails. Btw, it is also not at all resistant to scratches – isn’t that just so... great (I have to grind my teeth just to say this). Xtreme Wear, hahaha, yeah suuuuure. Maybe they forgot to add “-ly Bad” just to save space and called it Xtreme Wear when in actuality it is Xtremely Bad Wear? Or maybe the giant X is for staying away from this? I am trying to make jokes about this because I am quite literally done with this stinking crap of a nail polish. I am beyond frustrated with it, I just want it off and to be done with it.
 
 
 
Well, at least it is extremely easy to remove. I only had to rub my nails a tiny bit before the top layer was broken through and the rest came off with literally zero effort. However, it does stain nails slightly yellow. Oh, I saw this coming from a mile away, it is an extremely intense yellow colour after all. But why do other yellow nail polishes then not stain my nails? Why? Because they aren’t this level is rubbish, that’s why.
 
 
 
 
 
 
All in all, no, no, no, no, and finally... no. This is a fine example of how to mess up a nail polish. What went wrong here? Everything. Literally. Well, I guess that the colour is nice and it is quite easy to remove, but aside from that, it is terrible. So, let’s start with the colour. This is a bright, sunny, happy kind of yellow that, were the nail polish actually decent in any regard, would bring a smile to my face. This is definitely a vibrant summery colour, but it is also good for spring because it has some white undertones in it that make it a bit gentler to the eyes. I imagine that this colour would look good on tanned skin, it would really pop; it also looks quite nice on pale skin. Now, sigh, let’s tackle this mountain of bad to worse to worst. At every step of the way, I was frustrated and/or angry with this nail polish. Why can’t the brush apply the damn polish normally?! Why is it spilling all over the cuticles?! Why, oh why, is it so goddamn patchy even with two coats?!! Try as I might, it still ended up being uneven and blotchy and just awful looking. It also dries weirdly (kinda like the Good. Kind. Pure. range), it becomes matte and looks very cheap then. Fortunately, the texture is glossy in the end. But to make it at all even, you need hellishly thick coats, which does not help the nail polish last longer – quite the contrary, actually. Because it chips within 24 hours – how’s that for “Xtreme Wear”? And it also gets covered in scratches, so no, it has no longevity, actually. Bah. Here I was, naïvely excited for this cheerful colour but in the end, I feel like I sucked on a lemon. Not fun. Nor enjoyable. What a terrible nail polish, wow. Perhaps I should have listened to what people were saying online about this colour, they were 100% right. No chance ever that I would recommend this nail polish, it is GARBAGE. The only reason it isn’t getting a 1/10 is because I like the colour. But just stay away from this, it is not worth any money.
 
 
 
Rating: 2.5/10
 
 
Would buy again? HELL NO
 
 
 
[🎶 Song recommendation: Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg: California Gurls]



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