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?

Shame on you Sinful Colors!

This and this is absolutely appalling!
I'm lucky enough to have never had any of my images or content stolen (well as far as I'm aware!), apart from one time where someone uploaded some photos of my nail polish collection to the Models Own facebook page without my permission, but that is absolutely nothing compared to what has happened to The Swatchaholic and Swatch and Learn!

Other bloggers and ebay sellers nicking photos off blogs for their own purposes is bad enough but this, using bloggers photos to actually advertise a product (that isn't even being worn in the photo!) is just beyond the pale!

You can't really get Sinful Colors in the UK but if you could then I would be boycotting them! There's also a petition here but really there should be no need of a petition, I'm pretty sure what theyv've done is illegal. Or am I naive?
Support your fellow Beauty Bloggers!

A Trip To Westfields

A couple of weeks ago Claire and I took a trip to Westfields which at the moment is my favourite place to go shopping. It really reminds me of a peoper huge American mall, has tonnes of shops I really like and it's really spacious and airy so it never seems too crowded (which means I feel less anxious). 

I didn't do very interesting makeup as I wanted to get out the house quickly.

 

Claire wanted to take a picture of my (not particularly interesting) outfit but as we went out to the garden I realised that the burly polish builders working on the house next door (who constantly play really loud Europop from the nineties) were watching us, which explains my expression (I hope).

 

Our first stop is always at Butlers Chocolate Cafe because it is AMAZING! It does the worlds best hot chocolate and you get a free fancy truffle with every drink.

 

Drinking a delicious chocolate milkshake and wearing my fake Jeremy Scott sunglasses ( I wanted the real ones but these were £6).

 

Claire likes her Chai tea.

We shopped for a while and then had lunch. The food court is great, it has loads of choice and healthier items. I got falafel and hummous and Claire had a huge vegetable burrito.

Westfields is absolutely great for a makeup fiend like me. There's regular shops like Superdrug and Boots then higher end brands like Makeup Store, Mac and Inglot (I think it's the only Inglot shop in the UK, but I may be wrong) and Debenhams which has various brands like Chanel, Dior, Urban Decay etc.There's also an OPI shop (which I think is the only place in the UK to get Nicole by OPI polishes), some kind of mineral makeup place and Kiko (which is a great shop with bargain prices and fun colours but seems to always playing really horrible loud club music). There's also Beauty Base which is..odd. Beauty base is like a big discount perfume place (though some of the discounts are only 5p off RRP) and then it has some high end makeup brands like Shiseido (which seemed to have no discount) and also really cheap, obscure brands. You can get L.A. Colors there which is great because everythings under £5. And finally (I think, I may have forgotten some shops) a Models Own shop has just opened. 

The shop looks cool because it's in the shape of a nail polish bottle!

 

(photo belongs to Models Own)

 

My experience of the shop however wasn't that great. The staff seemed very nice and friendly but there were  a group of about 5 SAs standing in a big group chatting to each other. This meant there were bits of the shop I couldn't access and they continued their conversation even when I was paying for my goods which is a real pet peeve of mine. The stock seemed a little odd, they had hundreds of the nail polishes but they seemed to be arranged by colour, while this might usually be helpful it means if you want something from their collections (I wanted some Beetlejuice colours) you have to go hunting for them all individually. And there were about 4 sections, all of which had the nail polish in a slightly different order (some colours were on all sections, some were only on 1 etc). Models Own has a huge variety of products but the shop only had certain products. Finally the check out system is just weird. Instead of scanning barcodes the SAs are all equipped with tablet computers and have to manually search for the colour you're buying, it seems really inefficient, especially as it took took of them (one to call out the name of the product and the other to find it on the tablet)

On the plus side however you can make your own little gift box of 6 polishes for £20 (on the website you can only get premade selections)

 

Those are (rather terrible) swatches of the new Models Own Matt Brite lipsticks. from top to bottom:

Flaming Red, Annalise's Pink, Pink Hawaiian and Orangeade. 

Then an amazing thing happened, I was in Topshop looking at some glittery brogues when I heard a call of 'Lillian?' and turned to discover Robyn, my fellow Makeup Hero, looking at the same shoes! :D

Topshop wouldn't let us take a photo inside for some reason (they also wouldn't let Claire come in the changing rooms with me which sucked because I wanted her opinion on a dress I was trying) but we took one outside. Robyn is just as beautiful in real life as in her blog and a super funny awesome fellow!

 

We ended up both buying the aforementioned shoes. Oooh friend, shoe friend!

All in all a good day was had.

My nail polish (and one lipstick) haul is under the cut. I got a few other bits too (mostly tights) but I haven't taken photos of them yet. 

Barry M Croc Nail Effects Review

Most people seem to be 'over' crackle polishes, but not me! I love them, I'm still not over the novelty of watching the little fissures appear in my nails and they're brilliant for livening up a polish I've gotten bored of or hiding smudges/chips/tip wear and stuff. I was really excited when Barry M came out with the 'Croc Nail Effects' polish because it was a new kind of crackle! The idea of it basically is a crackle that looks like crocodile skin, so rounder with smaller gaps. I waited ages to get it because it was never available anywhere near me but recently I picked it up.

Unfortunately I'm a bit disappointed. 

When I applied it to the first nail I did it as I would any other crackle, over a completely dry base coat of colour (in this case Barry M Nail Effects Silver Foil). After a few minutes this was my result:

 

It just wasn't what I was hoping for, there's hardly any cracks and lots of lines that aren't making the round 'croc' shape it's supposed to.
Then I read the packaging and iscovered I was applying it wrong, with this it says you're meant to put it over slightly wet polish, so for my next few fingers I applied another coat of the silver, waited about a minute, then applied the croc effects. This was my result:

 

...Oh dear.

So then for the last nails I tried leaving the base coat for a few minutes, so it was basically dry but not completely:

 

So these are... about the same as the first one.

Maybe I'm just applying it badly somehow (if anyone has any tips please let me know) but as it is I can't recommend this to people, it's too messy and I just really don't like the effect. Big disappointment. But I'll try it again sometime and will update if I can make it work.

Candy Stripe nails

I finally found the lead for my camera! Yay!

And it's nearly Christmas, hooray!

Here's my current manicure. It's not perfect of course but as it was my first time properly using a striping brush I don't think it's terrible. That being said, this was my left hand, the right one is even messier!

I used Models Own Snow White as a base and then Inglot Nail Art polish in 34

I'll probably end up changing them up again before Christmas :P

A Haul from Wendy :D

Hullo everyone.

A while ago I got the lovely Wendy to cp me a few bits, but she was naughty and sent me gifts too. Ohhh naughty generous people :P

Have a look at my goodies!

First I got the Deborah Lippmann 'Get This Party Started' set which includes 3 polishes in 'Happy Birthday', 'Candy Shop' and 'Forget You'

   

These were a lot bigger than I expected. I've only seen photos of the bottles from straight on and I imagined they were cuboid/rectangular, like Barry M polish bottles. Instead they're square and pretty huge!

 I had my Lynnderella polishes (which I mentioned in this post) delivered to Wendy.

  

The colours are Snow Angel, Connect the Dots, The Glittering Crowd and Throwing Water into the Ocean (a freebie :) )

And in the US ELF had a 70% off sale, and as it's about half the price there than it is here I thought I'd grab some bits.

 

ELF studio Angeld Eyeliner Brush, ELF mineral Flat Eyeliner Brush, ELF Zit Zapper.

 

ELF Studio Glitter Gloss in Jeweled Jam , ELF Studio Minty Lip Gloss in Houston, ELF Studio Pout Perfecter, ELF Studio Radiance Enhancer in Spotlight, ELF Studio Lip Lock pencil.

This delightful thing is a candle holder from Bath and Body Works.

 

Ad then some gifts from Wendy <3

2 Bath and Body Works PocketBacs (antibacterial hand gel stuff)

 

The ghost is Chocolate Chew scented (smells JUST like a Tootsie Roll and the ghostie glows in the dark :D) and the Lichtenstein-esque Whaam! Is Fruit Punch scented. 

And some Makeup! I am spoiled :)

Milani Lipsticks in Orange-gina and Blackcherry, Jordana Lip Out Loud gloss in OMG, Sinful Colors polishes in Frenzy and Hottie

Thank you Wendy!!

Swatches of most things under the cut :)

Lynnderella - princess of polishes!

A while ago I ordered some polishes from Lynnderella. You may have heard of her, she's a fantastic frankener who, a few months ago, finally gave in and started selling her amazing glitter creations. I love the colours I got, particularly Connect the Dots, an amazing and completely unique black and white glitter polish.

Here is one coat over Illamasqua Jo'Mina.

It's just so amazing! Like instant nail art. It looks great over all colours of creme polish!

I also made a video about the polishes, you can see the other colours I got :)

 

Her shop only opens at certain times so she can handle the orders easily and it's actually about to open tonight! She only ships to the US at the moment (I got mine through Wendy) and there is a 5 bottle minimum order. Unfortunately this means I can't afford to buy any more right now :( But if you can you should get what you like while she's open!  Some of the Halloween collection are just gorgeous looking. Boo hoo!

Flakies!

Mmm flakies, one of the most glorious kinds of polish ever. I love glitter but flakies are like opals for your nails! I also like the name, 'flakies' sounds a bit... nasty, it reminds me of flaking skin and that amuses my childish mind  :D I only actually own 3 and need more, particularly some of the gorgeous ones from Inglot. Anyway here's a couple of manicures using lovely flakies.

 

 

This was Models Own Spring Green with GOSH Rainbow over the top.

 

And this was ELF Mango madness with NFU-Oh 47 on top. It was subtler than the green mani but still very pretty. But I can't leave my nails alone so I...

 

Mattified it! Ahhh <3 I'm not usually the biggest fan of matte nails but putting a matte topcoat over flakies somehow makes them look even more magical, like hidden glowing jewels.

What's your favourite flakie polish?

Born Pretty Dotting Tools

After my previous review of the Laushine cracking polish the lovely people at Born Pretty offered to send me another item to review. As I'm getting more and more obsessed with my nails I chose this set of dotting tools to try my hand at some simple nail art.

Again my package arrived very quickly, in just about a week. The tools were packaged in a little plastic sleeve and then a bubble mailer, and they arrived safe and sound.

The set costs $4.74 and contains 5 double sided tools so there are 10 differe nt sizes all together. The sizes range from quite big (I'd guess about 3mm in diameter) to a tiny pinprick size. Some of the differences between the sizes are very small, some making dots that were identical to my (rather undiscerning) eye. The handles are made of some sort of sturdy resin and very pretty with the marbled pink and white swirl design (They also come in a multicoloured set). They're just about the perfect size in my opinion as the handles fit perfectly into my fist and I can hold them like a pen. 

I've never actually used a dotting tool before but it's so simple even a complete buffoon like me can do it. You just dip the 'ball' into your choice of polish, press it gently onto your nail and you're done! I did find that sometimes my little polish dots didn't come out perfectly uniform, but for the most part they looked neat. I've got quite shaky hands but I found the dots still came out quite evenly.  

Here I've used a different end of each tool on each nail to show all the different sizes:

I also found that you could use them to swirl polishes together for a very simple marbled effect. 

Here I put a blob of purple and gold polishes onto a purple base and then swirled it lightly using one of the smallest tools.

 

I used this technique on my Hot Lava mani as well. 

And here is a proper mani I did with them:

That's No 7 Bobby Socks (discontinued limited edition polish)  with Models Own Lemon Meringue dotted on top using the 3rd largest tool.

I really like these tools, I can see myself using them a lot as I love polka dots and they're really easy to use but very effective. I do think that some of the 'ball' sizes you get in the pack are very similar to each other but I guess there's only so big you could make a working dotting tool and as you get ten different sizes for under $5 I  think they're a real bargain. You still get a nice variety of sizes and as each is just slightly bigger or smaller than the others it means you could do some manis with each nail having just incrementally bigger dots than the last. I would definatley recommend them and would have been really pleased if I had bought them myself. 

So I'm really happy with the 2 products I've tried from Born Pretty. Like the polish I tried previously I think these tools are really high quality, especially for the price!  

I have a coupon code for my readers to get 10% off any Born Pretty purchase.

It expires on 31/12/2011 so there's still plenty of time to use it!  Also if enough people use it I will be able to do a giveaway sponsored by Born Pretty :)

*I recieved these in exchange for reviewing them however all opinions and thoughts are my own*

Neon Nails

So in my little haul the other week I got a set of Starry Temptress Color Club polishes from TK Maxx.

These are all neons with glitter added, a fabulous idea that you'd think would have been done a long time ago!  Oh and a glittery top coat as well.  

I found the polishes to be very thick which meant application was a little difficult s they were kind of gloopy. However once on the thickness sort of helped and they were fully opaque in two coats. They also dried quickly nd looked smooth when they were dry. This is my first real taste of Color Club (I only have one other polish from the brand) and I don't know if the thickness is a trait, or if it's just this collection or if my set is just a bit old or something. I need to buy some polish thinner anyway so when I do I'll add a drop in these and see if it helps.

Firstly I did a manicure alternating my nails between the green (Glitter Envy) and the brighter, hotter pink (Ultra Astral)

     

In the bottles the glitter looks holographic, like theres all colours of glitter shimmering in there. However on the nail it all look sort of the same colour and not really... sparkly?  It's hard to desribe. The glitter in the green polish looks sort of gold and in the hot pink it looks blue. I would prefer it to look the way it does in the bottle but it's still kind of cool.

Then I added a layer of the top coat

Now it's more sparkly! :D The top coat is clear with multicoloured glitter, on the nail it looks mostly like a mix of blue and yellowy/orange glitters but every so often you see a little flash of a different colour as well.

I wore this a couple of days and then got a chip (I only got the one chip the whole time I wore this polish, about 4 days) on the tip of one of my index fingers so I decided to go super ridiculous.

  

Aww yeah. I added french tips using the bright orange (You Got Soul-ar) and blue (Otherworldly).

Super ludicrous and bright but due to both my terrible application and the thick polish the tips look super lumpy. 

I really like these. Again I would prefer them to have the glitter shine through on the nails as it does in the bottle, but the colours are still really cool and I've never seen a glittery neon creme before.

I'm really into nail polish at the moment. I get bored every few days and have to change whats on my tips regardless of how it's wearing. Do you do that or do you keep your polish on as long as it looks good?