Jelly Butterfly

It is nice to be back after taking the weekend off.  My mother-in-law came into town this weekend.  My mother usually hosts Easter, but since they are out of town, we celebrated at our house with my sister, sister-in-law and their families.  Not too huge a gathering, just enough to keep the conversation hopping....when we weren't stuffing our face :)

Today's prompt for The Never Ending Pile challenge is drugstore.  When I think of drugstore polish, Sally Hansen immediately comes to mind.  I have a decent amout in my stash...maybe 25-30?  I don't count my polishes because I am in denial about my obsession.  Most of them are Insta-Dris used to stamp with, but recently Sally has come out with some interesting finishes and glitters.  Unfortunately, with my indie love, they tend to be neglected.  Not today!  Just a little side note....most of the pics today will be with flash, since the stamping was not showing up without it.

I started with three thick coats of Sally Hansen Indi-Glow.  This is a beautiful cobalt jelly filled with small irridecent glitters that flash every color in the rainbow.  I discovered I have a love/hate relationship with this polish as a base.  It is undoubtedly beautiful, but for someone who does not like VNL, the formula is a PITA.  It applies easily, but even with Seche Vite, which usually makes polish dry and undentable in 5-15 minutes, my polish was still unset after a full 45 min.  Due to the slow drying, you can see that I had a huge amount of shrinkage, both at my cuticles and tips.  That is okay with me.  I figure I will probably never use this as a base again, but it will get a lot of use in lead lighting stamped manis.

   
Because of the squishiness of the polish, I waited a to stamp until the next day.  I used BM-424 and Finger Paints Black Expressionism to create iridescent butterfly wings.

The problem with this was that the black was not very distinct against the blue, which is why you get so many flash pics.  One of those "good in theory" manis.

After wearing this for another day, I added some black to the tips to cover the shrinkage and some matte top coat.  I really need to invest in a good matte top coat as I am not wild about the results I am getting from my cheapy NYC.  Matting it took away from the squishy jelly, and I wasn't really wild about it.  

So there you have it....not my favorite mani from the challenge, but not a fail.  Like I said, this is definitely staying in my stash for lead lighting, especially since my only other dark blue cobalt jelly is not quite jelly enough for my liking :)  Thanks for visiting and commenting!