Polished

 Confession time: I am a self-professed nail polish junkie. Double confession? I used to be a terrible, horrible, awful nail-biter. One day somewhere in the middle of college, I suddenly stopped cold turkey. A miracle, really, since it's a known fact I have zero willpower. I also found the nicer and more colorful I kept my nails, the less tempted I was to pick at them, and soon a small collection of a dozen or so blah bottles became 30, 40, 50 bottles of resplendent color to satisfy whatever mood I might want to convey with a wave of my hand.

Several summers lifeguarding at my local pool were spent changing colors on breaks with the other girls. More often than not I went up on the stand with one hand painted, the other to be finished later, and too much time like this on all the female guards' hands (pun aside) resulted in a color change every couple of days, along with the added bonus of near-impeccable application skills, which saves me more money than I want to think about on manicures each year. 

I don't have nearly so much free time on—or, more accurately for—my hands these days, but when Sally Hansen reached out to see if I wanted to try their Triple Shine polish, I immediately removed my chipping mani and went straight for the blue (duh). 

My polish gets changed most often on the weekends or occasionally right before bed. My trick for no smudges at night: I lock my hands together, as though I'm holding my own, as I drift off. I don't move around a whole lot so it usually has a chance to completely dry before I inevitably shift! If I'm not in a rush on weekend mornings, I like to get up, make coffee and eat breakfast (not pictured: French toast to covered in some more berries), catch up on the hundreds of magazines I seem to always have laying around and put on a fresh coat of polish.  

Most beauty products claim to have some great aspect to them that others don't, but I always find it's not often enough they can really stand up to the claim. I was ready to layer on a super-shiny topcoat after applying my usual two coats, but stopped for a minute to admire the actual shine this polish really does have. I switched to pink (pictured above) this past weekend and even as I type three days later my nails are still gleaming! Of course, I went ahead with top coat, but only because I'm incredibly hard on my nails, although I'm still looking at minimal chips right now. 

Triple Shine comes in 29 different shades of solid, iridescent and glitter-y polish, all available wherever Sally Hansen is sold. Join the conversation on instagram & Twitter by hashtagging #ShineOn #TripleShine or #TurnUpTheShine (and, take a minute to get inspired by some of the incredibly cool self-done nail artists out there...thinking about taking my skills a step further & trying to replicate the Bowery Mural, below, somehow. 

I do have all the right shades...)

Photos by Emily Tozer and Myself for Blonde in this City

This post was sponsored by Sally Hansen & Refinery29, a brand I love and already use! Thanks for supporting the brands that make Blonde in this City possible.