Hard Candy Sky: Old vs. New

I first became interested in nail polish when I was 11 or 12 years old, especially light blue nail polish. My biggest lemming at the time was Hard Candy Sky. I thought it was the most perfect light blue I'd ever seen, but at the time the $10-12 dollars it retailed for was too much for me. I would always look at it longingly in its pretty bottle with the cute matching ring, but instead of buying it I settled for a no-name brand that cost $3. It wasn't the same, though, but I forgot about it after a few years and my nail polish obsession really disappeared for a long time.

Fast-forward to 2009, when my nail polish obsession came back in spades! I searched for HCS on ebay every once in a while, but was hesitant to spend the $15+ many were charging for it (I guess some things never change!). I finally won an auction for a bottle of Sky and Jailbait for about $14 shipped? I was super excited to receive the bottle. Of course, a couple of weeks later, I was at Walmart and saw that Sky had been re-released! I decided to pick up a bottle just in case it was different.

So, here is my first nail polish lemming with its newer counterpart, side by side:


The most obvious difference is the packaging, of course. The bottles have different fonts, different amounts (the older one is on the left, with .5 oz. versus the newer bottle with .35 oz.), and different rings (the older one is made of a stretchier material, like jelly shoes, while the newer one is hard plastic). The older one looks just a tinge more greenish, but I think that might be due to its age.

On the nail, they look identical:


There is a subtle shimmer you can see in the bottle, but it's almost invisible on the nail. You can see it if you look very closely in bright light but it's hardly worth mentioning. The formulas were almost the same as well. The newer version was slightly thicker, but both were very streaky and required four coats to smooth out. I believe the older version also took just a little bit longer to dry. The most significant difference to me was the difference in the size of the brushes. Here they are, side by side:

Left is from the older bottle, right is the newer one. There doesn't seem to be much of a size difference, but the older brush is wider, thicker, and more flexible, making application easier. Other than the brush though, these polishes are pretty much the same.

I suppose this color isn't particularly unique, but I adore it and will always remember it as my first nail polish love. It was also one of the first Hard Candy nail polish colors (if not the first), so it's kind of like owning a bit of nail polish history. Out of the several light blues I own now, I still consider this one my favorite (probably always will).

Hard Candy makeup is available at Walmart.