Avon Nail Art Design Strips vs Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips

Ever since discovering Sally Hansen's strips I've been in love. I've written about them before in this blog two years ago. I can do my toes and hands from one package and it looked like I got Minx done at a nail salon . When I saw that Avon was coming out with their own strips in my demo book I said I'd give it a try since the designs looked nice. I got the "Cheetah Pink", duh ;) Already, with just the product names I could tell they would be  different. SH is nail polish and Avon's sounded like stickers. I was right. The Avon ones are in a normal, flat package and you just peel off each strip. SH comes in a rectangular box in a vacuum sealed package along with a mini file and a cuticle stick which comes in handy. You can literally buy it at the store and apply them right away. Avon's does not, though they do recommend that you use both. SH's strips are nail polish, so they smell like it, Avon's smelled like plastic. Almost kiddie-like. I peeled one Avon sticker off, I was going to do my big toe, and immediately it was a P.I.T.A, it curled and stuck together and I had to fight to un-stick it. That happened every. Single. Time. Not fun. With SH, I could use the other end of the strip on my toe, not with Avon, it was useless after that. It's also a lot thicker than SH so when it was time to file the overlap on the sides (no strip fits everyone perfectly), it took forever and so much effort. SH is thinner, so filing the sides are a cinch, you can even use nail polish remover on a piece of a cotton ball spread over the cuticle stick. With Avon, once on, they don't look like if you got them professionally done like with SH, it looks like shiny plastic on your nails. I did my two big toes and decided to put real nail polish on the other toes just to save me the drama. I did my left hand, stopped to eat and when I washed my hands I noticed the edges of some of my nails had already un-stuck! I was so pissed that I just ripped one off entirely, then realized it leaves a sticky residue on the nail. Gah! I just used my buffer to get rid of it. With SH you have to remove it with nail polish remover, which takes a while, but at least that means it's hard to come off! I'm sitting here writing this with the nails on my right hand bare, the design on one finger of my left hand peeled off and nothing but my big toes done. I give up up for tonight. SH takes about 20 mins to apply to both my hands and feet, this would have taken all night!