Review – Sugar Apple Gelly Hi-Shine by Barry M

Sugar Apple Gelly Hi-Shine by Barry M

Sugar Apple is a very pretty Spring colours that’s just been added to Barry M’s Gelly Hi-Shine collection. It’s a soft, yet at the same time quite bright baby blue with maybe just the slightest touch of green in it. If I had to give it a name it would be ‘mint blue’ – it has that same slightly frosty feel to it as a mint green. When I bought it I also got a new white and Mango Gelly Hi-Shine, which it turned this colour goes really well with – it’s always fun to put complementary colours together, especially as the weather starts brightening up!

I found that Sugar Apple went on quite thickly, and I had to be careful not to put too much on my brush. It went on quite evenly though and was fairly opaque even on the first layer. It lives up to its name and has a high-gloss finish, although I always use a top coat for durability. However, even with a top coat this polish doesn’t seem very resilient, after a couple of days there was a lot of chipping and flaking, although that could be something to do with all the Spring cleaning I’ve been doing lately!

I personally think this shade would look really pretty with a matte finish – it’s a shame that matte polishes are so few and far between these days! But even as a gloss this is a lovely shade for Spring, and should carry on well into the Summer as well. The other shades in the new collection were also quite pretty, but out of the ones I saw this was definitely my favourite with Rose Hip coming out second. It’s priced at £3.99 and if you’re lucky both Boots and Superdrug should still be running their 3 for 2 offers on Barry M cosmetics – if you can choose between either I’d go for Superdrug – they always seem to have a greater selection for Barry M in my experience.

Review – Mediterranean by Barry M

Mediterranean is a very pretty two-toned polish that reflects shades of pink/orange/gold depending on the light. In the picture above which was taken in natural light it appears more of an orange gold, but in artificial light you get a lot more of a pink sheen. The polish goes very nicely with the limited edition gold flake Barry M polish that I got at Christmas – it really bring out the golden tones. It doesn’t have a name on the bottle however and as it’s limited edition, you may want to scour Ebay if you’re wanting to get your hands on that one. The Treasure Chest polish that’s part of the Aquarium collection will probably go just as nicely.

The polish goes on very well, very smoothly. It tends to go on quite thinly, after my first layers I thought I’d need at least three but fortunately it was opaque after two coats. It does okay in terms of endurance but I am seeing a few chips now that it’s been a few days – the nails with the flake top coat are still going strong though.

Although I don’t like this one as much as the Atlantic polish from Barry M’s Aquarium collection, it is very pretty and would go lovely with a gold outfit/accessories. If you put it on I would recommend going with the gold accents on the ring finger just for that extra pop! This one is £3.99 – you can either take advantage of the offer going on at Superdrug right now, which is any three £3.99 Barry M polishes for £9 or the Boots offer which is 3 for 2 on any cosmetics.

Review – Mushroom & In the Surf

Review – ‘Mushroom’ by Barry M & ‘In the Surf’ by Seventeen

You lucky things I have two new polishes to review for you today – the first is ‘Mushroom’ by Barry M, a soft brown varnish and the other is ‘In the Surf’ by Seventeen, a blue, pink and white sequin top coat. I love how these two go together – it seems like In the Surf was made for a neutral base. I also tried it on white which looked quite nice but you do lose the white sequins.

Mushroom is a gorgeous colour, I don’t have many neutrals in my collection but this one is a lovely soft shade that looks really nice on pale skin (very useful if like me, you haven’t seen proper sun in a few years 😉 ). It goes on really smoothly and you only need a single thin coat to get brilliant, opaque coverage. In daylight it looks perhaps a touch more saturated and a little less grey than it does in the picture, but it’s pretty close. For £2.99 this one’s a steal, and a staple colour at that for whenever you’re looking for something other than a French Manicure to wear with neutrals.

In the Surf was an impulse buy that I chose to take advantage of Boots’ 3 for 2 deal they currently have on cosmetics. Again, although I don’t normally do for sequin top coats this one is great and I’m glad I decided to pick it up! It’s all pale shades of blue, pink, white, and occasionally orange (although there doesn’t seem to be too many of the orange sequins, they’re quite sparse but I think that gives a nice contrasting effect that wouldn’t work quite as well if there were too many).

One coat of this is pretty good but I personally preferred the coverage given by a couple of coats of this. It spreads quite well and evenly and all the sequins don’t just get stuck at the top of the nail at the end of the stroke as they can with some polishes. I love this one on neutral colours – I’m not sure the combination would work too well on brights. This varnish is by Seventeen, so you’ll only find it at Boots – they had a few different colours available so why not go down and take advantage of the 3 for 2 offer if this polish catches your eye? It’s £3.99 on its own.

Review: Mermaid by Barry M

I just got my new polishes from Barry M’s ‘Aquarium’ collection! Out of the six available I chose Pacific, Mediterranean and Mermaid. I liked Atlantic as well, but my Peridot by Chanel polish is already similar, and I wasn’t too keen on Treasure Chest or Caspian. I do however LOVE the three that I chose – this Aquarium theme is right up my street with rich, jewel tones and beautiful shimmers.

This was originally going to be review of Mermaid AND Pacific, with Mermaid featuring only on my ring finger. However, once I started with Mermaid on one finger, I just couldn’t help myself – I had to have it on every finger! I loved it too much to limit it to just the one (not that I don’t love Pacific as well, I’ll be sure to give that it’s own review. As for here, it will just have to be satisfied with being a very pretty and complementary base colour).

The collection is very cleverly put together, with Mermaid and Pacific being very complementary when worn together, and Mediterranean would look very nice with Treasure Chest. Mermaid is one of my favourite polishes in a long time, which is unusual as I don’t usually go for sequin polishes – I especially don’t usually apply them on every nail as they can be so difficult to remove, but I just couldn’t stop myself! It has a variety of gorgeous blues, green and golds which look glorious on top of the metallic blue shimmer of Pacific.

You may have a personal preference as to how much coverage you want from a sequin coat – I personally wanted quite a full coverage, and it took a while to make sure that I had a nice even coat all over my nail. It goes on quite thick if you’re not careful so be careful not to overload your brush. You also want to give the bottle a good shake before you apply it, otherwise you’ll just be applying clear varnish without any sequins.

It dried pretty quickly once I’d applied a top coat, which adding just that extra little bit of shine that made an already beautiful polish really shine. It’s holding up pretty well, no chips so far – as a sequin polish I imagine it’s pretty hardy (something I’ll be less happy about when it comes to taking it off I imagine!) You’ll want a pretty decent layer of top coat on this otherwise the texture will drive you mad, you don’t want the little sequins catching on everything – which can be annoying when doing things like washing your hair for example, but again, a decent top coat should prevent this from being a problem.

Overall, for £3.99 (or £2.99 if you get it in the two for £6 sale currently going on at Superdrug on £3.99 Barry M polishes) this is a must-buy. After a disappointment with Barry M’s Silk Collection, this new Aquarium collection has more than made up for it. I can’t wait to try Mediterranean too!

Review: Blueberry Ice-Cream by Barry M & So Matt by Bourjois

After making a couple of Christmas nail sets for my shop, I decided that I wanted some snowflakes for my own nails too – and it was the perfect opportunity to try out a couple of new polishes that I have: Blueberry Ice-Cream by Barry M and So Matt by Bourjois.

Blueberry Ice-Cream is a soft baby blue, similar to Blue Moon but a touch darker and a lot more opaque. I already had Blue Moon but I found it was a tad too light and transparent for the Wintery designs I wanted to make. The polish goes on quite thickly – in the picture above I only have one coat on and it’s plenty. I often find with Barry M polishes that when you first buy them they have this thicker consistency, but may thin out a little as you go along. As it is I really love this colour – I’d been looking for a slightly darker alternative to Blue Moon for a while and this was just what I needed. I’m not sure if it’s actually new or if my local store only just started selling it, as I’ve not seen it before (I probably would have bought it instead of Blue Moon if I had). I’m going to assume the latter as I already knew of Blueberry’s pink and yellow counterparts Strawberry and Lemon Ice-Cream. This polish is £2.99 like most Barry M polishes, so it’s a good deal.

The colour in the picture above looks perhaps a little lighter than it usually would, due to the application of a matte top coat which often makes polishes look a little lighter when used.

Now for So Matt. Usually my matte top coat of choice is Matte About You by Essie, although there’s not really much choice amongst the cheaper high street brands. In fact, this Bourjois matte coat is the first one I’ve seen other than Essie in my local stores, although I’m aware of a few others such as the one by 17 from Boots. At £5.99, this matte coat is £3 cheaper than Matte About You, which is a definite plus for a polish I get through so quickly. As I can’t seem to find Matte About You in any of my local stores anymore and was desperate for a matte coat for my shop designs, I decided to give this one a whirl.

At first application, So Matt is almost as effective as Matte About You, although I would say it has a little more of a satin-y texture, but it’s still very good. One downside to this polish as opposed to the Essie one is that, if like me, you can’t leave your nails alone once you’ve applied it, they will become shinier as time goes on. I saw this a little with the Essie polish, but only very slight and only after wearing the polish for a while – with this one I started seeing it after a couple of days. You can of course just re-apply it but that means using more polish and can mean that this polish is actually more expensive than the Essie alternative on a design-by-design basis. The polish dries pretty quickly, although you’ll want to be careful not to smudge it as it dries, a common problem amongst matte top coat – they really like to show fingerprints. You have to apply it fairly liberally to ensure you get a nice even coat, again, another common issue with matte coats – if you have any nail art patterns as I do in the picture above, you have to make sure that you apply the matte coat evenly as it can dimple round the edges of the nail art pattern.

Overall I do like So Matt, although I do prefer Matte About You and would probably still buy that one if I could still get it in-store. I often need polishes at the last minute so buying online isn’t my favourite option, especially since most of the online options I found were more expensive than the polish is in-store, and you can’t use store vouchers to go towards the cost. So Matt is a decent second-best though and definitely good enough for the casual user.

 

Majesty by Barry M

Majesty By Barry M – Review

Barry M released some new polishes a couple of days ago in the UK – some matte polishes and some textured glitter polishes. I headed down to the store to by some buy only a few were left, I did however manage to nab the last of the store’s  ‘Majesty’ polishes, a really pretty champagne-coloured varnish.

The bottle advises that you apply a base colour first, but I found that with two coats the polish was actually opaque enough to be fine on it’s own. In the above picture I just have a clear base coat, two layers of Majesty and a top coat. Even with the top coat the polish keeps its cool, textured finish. I quite like it but I can imagine it getting on people’s nerves, especially if they scratch against something it can make you cringe a bit.

The textured surface actually seems to make the polish pretty resistant to wear and tear, it hasn’t shown any signs of coming off in the couple of days I’ve been wearing it. I imagine it’s going to be an absolute pain to get off, but more glitter polishes are.

The actual colour is a champagne-gold, very delicate and pretty. It’s very sparkly and it’s actually one of my favourite polishes at the moment. It’s a bit hard to catch on camera but there is a definite but subtle gold tinge that isn’t too overbearing. It ties in well with Autumn’s glitter and neutral colour trends, and it’s one of my few polishes that I think looks interesting enough on its own without being tempted to do some nail art design on top of it, which makes it good if I need to do my nails but don’t have a lot of time to do so.

Overall I really like this polish, although I’m sure I’ll have a different opinion when it comes to scrubbing it off. For £4.99 it’s not too expensive either. It’s only available at Superdrug at the moment as all the newest Barry M polishes are, but if you spend £9 there at the moment you get their new mascara free! I don’t know if this is an online offer but it’s definitely on in-store.

Nail Dotting Tools – Review

Nail Dotting Tools – Review

Price – £1.90 from Ebay, can be bought even cheaper if you’re willing to wait for delivery from overseas

Pros: Easy to use, good round dots, can also be used to apply gems

Cons: Won’t always fit all the way into the nail polish jar

I’d been thinking of buying some dotting tools for quite a while, as although I can do decent dots free-hand, I can only do large ones. These dotting tools came in a set of five, with ten different sizes – five larger ones and five smaller ones. With these I can now do dots of various sizes, as well as a layering affect (as shown in my last set of extra short purple nails). These tools make it really easy to achieve a perfectly round dot, but work better when you’ve got a decent amount of polish on the tip. If you don’t have enough, you might make a ring instead of a circle, with gaps in the middle.

Another plus to these is that you can use the smaller ones to apply gems and rhinestones in the same way you might use a cuticle stick. Just dip them into a bit of glue and then use them to pick up and position the gem onto the nail. They’re easy to clean, as long as you don’t let the nail polish dry on them you can just wipe them clean, and if it has dried you can just swish them in a bit of nail varnish remover and then wipe them.

The one negative point I have about these is that the main body of the tools – that is the translucent, colourful handle – doesn’t fit into all nail polish bottles. I use mainly Barry M polishes and the neck of the bottle is too thin to allow the tool to fit all the way through. Instead you have to tip the bottle to allow the polish to reach the tip. Luckily the handle is just wide enough that it plugs the neck of the bottle, so you can tip it without worrying about the polish all running out.

All in all I’d say for just under £2 these are a very good investment. They seem sturdy enough and I think they’ll last me a long time, as well as making dotting easier and allowing me to apply gemstones. If you pay a little more you can get them in nicer designs –  I saw a nice purple set when I was browsing, but I decided to put finances ahead of aesthetics.

Country House Nails – Review by Cutelicious

Camelia Bhaskar of Cutelicious has written a review of my pink ‘Country House’ false nails on her blog – check it out (and take a look at the rest of her blog for tutorials and reviews). There’s also a 10% discount code on offer for my store!

http://cuteliciousmakeup.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/floral-handpainted-nails-from-nail.html?showComment=1370361469174#c1534340086840825591

Camelia wearing her new nails.

Red Glitter by Barry M

Red Glitter by Barry M – Review

I’ve been out shopping for new nail polishes again, and one of the ones I picked up was Red Glitter by Barry M. The colour’s exactly what it says on the tin – red glitter. I was excited about trying this out, thinking I’d get a sort of ruby slipper effect. However the colour wasn’t exactly what I expected, rather than being red with glitter in it, the polish is mostly transparent with red glitter in it. The nails shown above have a red base coat with the glitter on top. It did have quite a nice effect applied on top of the red, but it wasn’t quite the same colour as it appeared on the bottle, and it was a bit annoying that I had to apply another colour first. One upside to this however is that you can apply it on top of different colours and see what effects you can make.

I put two coats on, but the nails were already pretty well covered with the first one. I don’t know if you can build up to a solid colour using the glitter alone with enough coats, but I imagine it would take quite a few and you’d work through the bottle pretty quickly. You need to put a top coat on top to avoid having a grainy texture from the glitter, but having a top coat on really makes the colour brighten up and stand out. It’s quite pretty, but the end result wasn’t quite what I’d hoped. I’d say it’s quite a limiting polish as, with most glitter varnishes, there’s not many other varnishes you can put it with; although there are one or two things you could try – maybe using it with a shiny black gloss on the nail tips.

Overall, although it’s an okay colour, I’m not sure I’ll buy it again once it runs out.

Barry M Corrector Pen

Barry M Nail Paint Corrector Pen

Usually if I need to clean up my nail polish a bit after applying it I just use a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover, however cotton buds have a blunt edge that can sometimes take the polish off where you don’t want it to, or it can be a bit fiddly getting it into the polish remover without spilling it everywhere.

When I was out in Leeds I saw this corrector pen in the 3 for 2 offer they had on Barry M products at Superdrug, so I thought I’d give it a go. It’s really easy to use and does exactly what it says on the tin, you literally just use it like a pen to remove nail polish wherever you want. It has a slanted tip so you can be really precise when using it – it also comes with two extra nibs so it’ll last for ages. You don’t need to shake it or anything else you literally just ‘colour in’ where your stray nail polish is. I imagine this could work pretty well with nail art as well.

It’s only a fiver, which is even better value when you factor the 3 for 2 deal in, which both Boots and Superdrug almost always have on. It removes nail polish quickly and easily, even the darker shades. If you don’t want to spend the extra bit of money there’s always the cotton bud, but this method is a lot quicker, easier and neater (and no spills!) Just another reason to love Barry M’s nail products!