Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat

**Warning Huge Tangent before Review, to read the review, start reading from the text that isn't italicized***

Recently I've been in a blogging rut.  I've felt like I had nothing to write about because I wasn't hauling anymore products in.  But the other day i read an article from British Beauty Blogger that inspired me.  She urged people to not be jaded by the onslaught of big beauty blogs that review everything under the sun, but to review anything (even if you had to borrow it), because at the end of the day, blogging wasn't always so intertwined with PR samples and didn't originate from that at all.  This really inspired me coming from one of London's biggest beauty blog.  I think I was feeling that my blog was inadequate, because I didn't have the latest and greatest, but when I thought about it...I've never intended on doing that when I started this blog.  The #1 reason why I started this blog was to show readers of a daily account of things that I liked, and bought at a cheaper price.  I was urged to start a blog when at my company luncheon someone had to describe me and they said "Sue knows about all the great bargains out there".   So now I am feeling inspired again and grounded once again.  I think a lot of people may experience what I'm going through when they are surrounded by million products and product reviews.

Not that I'm knocking on the blogs that do get PR samples, but when does a blog become less intimate and more about product reviews done out of obligation to the companies that sent them the PR samples?  This is an interesting development to the role of the blogger.  I think there needs to be a massive renewal of what blogging was initially was all about and for all of us to stop becoming a free marketing avenue for the all these companies.

OK...sorry just had to get that out!!! I can tend to rant a bit. :p

So the whole purpose of me even saying all that was that I was inspired by British Beauty Blogger's suggestion to review ANYTHING.  So that's what I'm doing here.

The Sally Hansen product has been in my drawer now since April (I think) and I've used it all this time, and sadly because it wasn't as glamorous as her brothers & sisters (Chanel, Dior, OPI), she sadly was never reviewed.

It is now 15% full and about to run out, and the reason why I wanted to review this product was that my opinion of this base/top coat has changed.  If you asked me months ago what I thought about this, I would have nothing but great things to say about it.  I thought it worked very well as both the base and top coat; however, now that there is only 10% of the product left - it's a completely different story.

I went to use it today and it was almost impossible to apply because it had thickened drastically.  Not sure why, maybe it's all the air that has gotten into the bottle that has changed the formula, but either way, it shouldn't change this much.  So for that reason, I am now going to find a way of getting rid of the last 15% in the bottle and either keep the bottle for frankening or recycle.   I thought about using Seche restore on it, but that might change the formula and frankly I don't want to waste an expensive product like Seche to restore this.

So for those who want to buy this product, I would say not to buy it unless you are willing to say goodbye to it before you finish the entire product.  I guess mass produced products can have issues, and this is one mass produced product that has failed me near it's end.