Barry M Textured Nail Effects Nail Paints

Hi! Today you get a look at my terrible stubby fingernails. I've been trying out these new Textured Nail Effects polishes by Barry M and I really like 'em!

 

These are pastel coloured polishes with a special gritty effect. The pink is called Kingsland Road, the yellow Station Road, the green Ridley Road and the blue is Atlantic Road.

They retail for £3.99 each but I picked them up at 2 for £6 from Superdrug (at the same time they were at 3 for 2 in Boots which would have saved me about 3p :P If you shop around you can usually find a deal on Barry M somewhere)

Now have a look at them and please ignore my poor ravaged cuticles. I've posted lots of photos to try and show the textured effects.

  

I don't know if you can see in the pictures but the yellow has a slight shimmer to it, the others are matte.

The effect is very easy to apply, you just paint it on like any polish and the grit gets more pronounced as it dries. Applying it really feels no different from a regular polish either. These photos all show 2 coats of polish over a base coat (they were all nearly opaque in 1 but the extra coat made the grit more defined as well as making it completely opaque). Oddly I found that, though the bottle specifies to use one, the effect is much more pronounced if you don't use a base coat so in the future I probably won't bother with one. I've heard some people say these are a nightmare to remove but I didn't have a problem at all, it's much easier than glitter!

The feeling of these on the nails is an acquired taste. At first I felt really creeped out touching them but then I got a bit obsessed with it! It doesn't feel too gritty, just sort of bumpy, and luckilly they didn't catch on my tights at all. These lasted about 4-5 days before the started chipping, which was pretty good considering you can't really use top coat on them. Oddly the different colours had different rates of chipping, the yellow was the first to go, then green, then blue and finally pink.

Anyway I really like these. I love the easter-egg colours and the gritty texture takes them away from being too pastel and ice-creamy. £3.99 is a good price for a polish but like I said shop around. If you like the effect but are interested in other colours then in the US Milani have just released some (see swatches here at Nouveau Cheap) or Nails Inc have a few but they are much more expensive (still might get the pretty grey one though). What do you think?