Monday, May 30, 2011

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri swatches and stamping tests!

Good morning! I am so tired this morning, I don't know how I'm going to get through 7 hours of boring work.
When I'm not sleeping in my own bed, I never get enough rest. 2 more nights of staying with my cousin. When I get home from work tonight we're going to finish painting her zebra wall!
Thanks for all the comments about the wall! I painted it, but unfortunately it isn't my wall. I wish it was! Maybe I'll make mine leopard print...

Anyway. Today's post is about my Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's.
In my swatch marathon the other day, I swatched the remaining 6 shades, and did a stamping test with all of them.
I have 2 others from this line that were swatched and stamp-tested here.


I'll do them in the order of the picture :)


Lickety-Split Lime. 2 coats for even coverage. 1 thick one could be fine.
Not a big fan of this color on it's own.


Presto Pink. This should be called Pepto Pink because it looks just like Pepto-Bismol.
Again, this is 2 coats, but one thick one would work.


Brisk Blue. Same story, 2 coats or 1 thick one.
Do not wear this without base coat. I have some yucky blue nails now after swatching it.


Rapid Red. 2 coats. This is the older formula, it's not as opaque and does not stamp very well.


Silver Sweep. Love this one. One thin coat is all you need. Dupe for China Glaze - Millennium, I compared their stamping ability, seen here.


Whirlwind White. 2 coats to avoid streaks. Looks like I forgot to watermark this one but I'm too lazy to do it now!
This is the best white I own. It's more opaque than China Glaze's White On White, so I prefer this one.

When it comes to stamping with Insta-Dri's, I have found that the ones with the name on a sticker on the top of the bottle work best.
If it does not have a sticker on the top, it is much thinner and doesn't work for stamping.
My Rapid Red is the old formula with no sticker, and it does not stamp well.
Here is the stamping swatch:


 As you can see, the red is good over white but not black. Everything else is good over white/black (except white which is obviously not good over white, so I swatched it over pink.)

Whirlwind White is almost as good as Konad Special White. Once it thickens up a bit I imagine it will be more like Special White.
When I got Whirlwind White, I first got a non-sticker bottle. In this post, I showed the difference in the two.

This morning I got an email from a reader, Analy, who asked if I could do a stamping test with Insta-Dri - Brisk Blue and Xtreme Wear - Blue Me Away.
Here you go, Analy!


I mentioned before that these colors are dupes. But do they both work for stamping? Not really.


Blue Me Away is not nearly as opaque for stamping, despite the fact that basically covers in one coat. It just is not quite as pigmented.
I hope this helps, Analy!

Overall, I love all these polishes.
I love the brush in Insta-Dri polishes, I find it really easy to work with. However, I did not buy these polishes for full manis, I use them mostly for stamping.

I would definitely recommend all of these colors, except Rapid Red.
Go get yourself some Insta-Dri and get stamping!

11 comments:

  1. Joyfalula said...

    Its so hard to find stamping polishes over here in the UK. The official konad ones are super expensive and the others that i see mention on blogs like wet n wild or insta dray just arnt available. I do have a full (big) bottle of Red Konad stamping polish if someone would like to swap for some black stamping polish (doesnt need to be konad polish,ive heard wet n wild black creme is fantastic for stamping)..... my email is joyfalula(at)gmail.com if anyone would like to make a swap

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  2. what are your favorite polishes to stamp with?

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  3. Ouu I need to get toe Milennium dupe one.. I just purchased LSL and a darker blue one the other day.. have yet to try them but I knew they would be good.

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  4. Ooh, the silver one is gorgeous and so is the blue.

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  5. Thank you much Rebecca.. since I only own blue me away.. now I need to get brisk blue also! Lol

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  6. Ooh, I like that silver one. Is it core or was it LE? I don't know that I've seen it.

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  7. Its so interesting to me that your Whirlwind White works so well. I had a bottle of it (and I think it was the newer one too) and it sucked so bad! I needed at least 3 coats for opacity, it took forever to dry and it was suuuper streaky! Maybe I just had a bad bottle. I made it into a franken so I can't try it again.
    I desperately need to pick up Silver Streak.
    Its weird that BMA and BB don't stamp the same. I hate the formula on BB so my roomie (blog co-author, Amanda) exchanged it in the Zoya swap along with Pepto Pink (what we also called it)
    Now that I see how well they work for stamping and I now have plates, I might have to pick them up!
    Thanks for this review and sorry I wrote like a novel here!

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  8. Fab post! =)I absolutely love your blog sweetie! =) Im always on the lookout for great stamping polishes - i hope i can find some of these insta dri polishes in the uk!

    /Hugs!

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  9. I have a new formula Rapid Red, and it works well for stamping. (sorry if you mention this in future posts, I am slowly making my way through your archives!)

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