Tag Archives: Barry M

Hellooo lovelies!

Teal is yet another of the lovely new releases from Barry M… I must apologise in advance, firstly for my yucky short nails (somehow I got over-enthusiastic with the nail file – oops!) and secondly because this polish was very very difficult to capture on this yucky grey rainy day! As such my photos are of ashamedly poor quality, yuck yuck yuck. I plan to redo them in the near future but I thought I would try and show you anyway!

The last two pictures I put on small because they are just ridiculously blurry, but they do give an accurate representation of the colour and finish of Teal (sorry!). Teal is a gorgeous bright blue shimmer polish. I think the base colour and shimmer colour must be very very close as this polish is such a solid turquoisey-blue. Personally I’d say it is more turquoise or cyan than teal but I’m just being fussy!

Just a heads up: don’t be fooled by the hint of purple duochrome you may see in the bottle, I can assure you it totally disappears on the nail.

Application:

The pictures all show 3 coats, although most of my nails were opaque at 2 coats. The polish applied well – it errs ever so slightly on the edge of being brushstrokey but just make sure you paint in one direction – brushstrokes don’t really show! Teal dried quickly and lasted 2 heavy duty days without topcoat with no tipwear whatsoever. The small bubbles you might see in my photos is because I was rather heavy-handed in applying the polish late at night, and ended up with quite thick coats which caused the bubbling, it is honestly user-error rather than a fault with the polish as I’ve worn this twice now and didn’t have a problem when I applied it more carefully.

What do you think of this stunning blue? It’s so vibrant, I think it would look absolutely amazing on both fingers and toes! If you didn’t like the green in Boots 17 Peacock but did love the blue, Barry M Teal is for you! It’s just such a pure metallic, I feel like the highstreet market has been missing this shade of shimmer for a while in favour of the green/blue duochrome. Very happy with this one. Oh and in certain lights, it looks like you’ve dipped your nails in liquid turquoise, amazing!!

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Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Barry M has released five new nail paints in shades Denim, Copper, Aqua, Black Multi-Glitter and Silvery Lilac. Copper is a beautiful rusty bronze foil polish, which seems to be a bit of a colour-shifter! In some lights it’s a lovely golden-bronze, in others it’s a distinctly coppery-brown colour and sometimes you even get hints of green and pink!

This is a very pretty blend of what seems to be pink and gold shimmer particles/microglitter in a murky brown base colour. This mixture of colours seems to be responsible for the colour-shifting, I can’t work out whether there is more gold than pink or vice versa, but they certainly pull the colour one way or the other depending on the light. I initially thought Copper might be a close match for OPI Warm & Fozzie, but looking at it, Warm & Fozzie seems a lot darker brown than Copper. So if you liked Warm & Fozzie but thought it was too dark for you, Copper will be perfect!

Application:

The photos all show 3 coats of Copper. As can be the case with some foils, the polish pulled some of the coloured shimmer along the nail leaving bald patches, which were fully covered by the 3rd coat. In terms of drying time, Copper dried relatively quickly. It was nice and shiny without topcoat – I always feel that topcoat doesn’t really ‘gel’ with foils, I did slick a quick coat on for the photos though as I had sheetmarks where I applied it right before bed!

What do you guys think of Copper? I think it’s a fab mix of colours, something very unique for the typical UK highstreet brand and I love it! I think this would look fab on toes, and for special occasions it’s very chic.

I had a little accident with my nails and overfiled them so I’m not totally sure whether I’ll be posting the next couple of days, they look rather ugly and stubby and I feel like the lovely Barry M’s deserve better! I’ll see if they grow overnight and decide tomorrow…! Hope you’re all well. Which of the new Barry M polishes have you tried?

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Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

I am ridiculously over-excited for Barry M’s five new shades: Denim, Copper, Aqua, Black Multi-Glitter and Silvery Lilac, all very gorgeous polishes!

Today I have Denim for you, a lovely blue creme with silver shimmer, which dries matte… yep! It’s also a dupe for Ciaté Regatta – Polished Criminails posted a wonderful Denim vs Regatta comparison post for us all.

 It is a little more matte than the pictures would have you believe, but I found it got shinier as the day wore on. This little lovely is very pretty, very demure and quite sophisticated. If you’re used to neutrals but want to toy with blue this is a good starter – bold yet not too in-your-face.

Application:

I kid you not, this is one coat. This is one of the many reasons I love Barry M – incredible quality for the cost (£2.99). The polish was a little thick but nothing disastrous – it made for an easy one-coat manicure. Denim dried fairly quickly – what I like about mattes is that you can see when it’s dry because you can see the matte effect!  You could put a normal topcoat on it to make it glossy if matte isn’t your thing – I forgot to take photos but it’s very very pretty in gloss too (dare I say prettier?).

All-round lovely polish, perhaps the most conservative of Barry M’s new line. I meant to mention that in releasing these new polishes, Barry M have discontinued Barry M Once Upon A Time and Barry M Silver Cascade – so stock up on eBay while you still can!

Have you tried any of the new line yet? I had to snap them all up the second I saw them – look out for them on le blog in the coming week! Let me know what you think of Denim – is the matte look for you?

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Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Barry M have released four new magnetic polishes (and 5 new nail paints but that’s for another post!) in the colours black, blue, red and purple. I never really got into the whole magnetic trend because I’m not patient enough to perfect the technique (as you will probably be able to tell from my photos!). I did get two of Boots 17’s magnetic polishes in silver and green and for some unfathomable reason, I am yet to use them. Something about the Barry M polishes got me excited though. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge Barry M fan! In any case, the new Barry M magnetics come with a different magnet on the lid, so each of the colours has its own pattern. Of course you can always swap them round but it’s a good way to get you to buy all four, lol. I picked up ‘Magnetic Blue’ – I was wildly influenced by the model in the photo on the Barry M stand as it looked super duper pretty. Anyway, enough rambling!

I am really rather spectacularly in love with this. For a start, the magnet is in a star-shape, it almost makes a Union Jack! It’s a gorgeous denim blue, quite different from Boots 17 Magnetic Blue  from the lovely Lydia at Lyd’s Blonde Thoughts. The background is a very deep dark blue, while the ‘star’ is a very silvery blue. Magnetic Blue totally makes me think of faded jeans!

I also think it’s kind of like the mysterons’ circles from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, lol! Anyone old enough/sad enough to know what I mean? It’s just a very alien-like, jellyfish-like finish and I LOVE IT! I’ve always been pretty much in awe of jellyfish and finally I can make my nails look like one!

Application:

I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy. The polish is very thick in the first place, which makes neat application difficult. Then there’s the magnet – I found it quite difficult to align it correctly over each nail and as you can probably see, my nails don’t match. I think my nails are a little too curved as well – this effect will look amazing on people with flatter nails! I found that it was difficult to get the magnet to affect the sides of my nail as well as the centre, and often I touched my nail by mistake in trying to make sure I kept it even. By the way, if you get polish on the magnet, don’t panic, just use a cotton wool bud with a tiny amount of nail polish remover and rub it off. The important thing is not to scratch the magnet. Like with a lot of magnetic polishes, there’s a little curved lip on the edge of the magnet for you to rest on your cuticle as you magnetise. Be sure to keep the magnet that distance from your nail because you’ll end up touching the nail and messing up like me otherwise! The magnet is on the top of the cap, which is detachable and removes to reveal a normal Barry M bottle. The pictures show 2 coats of polish – I magnetised it on the second coat, as the first is not quite opaque. Don’t put topcoat on until the polish is totally totally dry – I made this mistake and a lot of the metallic particles came with the brush which blurred the effect. If you do use a topcoat, use a thin, watery topcoat that won’t pull the polish.

What does it look like when it’s not been magnetised? A lovely denim shimmery-frost. Not too brushstrokey, still quite thick.

For curiosity’s sake, I put on a coat of Rimmel Matte topcoat – the effect was very pretty but totally doesn’t translate in this picture! It was somewhat 3 dimensional – very cool!

What do you think of the magnetic trend? Is it one of those novelties that you’d only wear at parties or is it something you’d go for? I’m tempted to try it on my toes, I think it’ll look pretty funky!

Barry M Magnetic polishes retail at £4.99 – currently only available in some Superdrugs and some Boots – when they announce the release of the polishes is when you know they’ll be in your local Superdrug/Boots, and they’ll be online too! In Superdrug there’s a buy 2 Barry M nail polishes and save £1 offer on – with my student discount I think I shaved £5.50 off my receipt!

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Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Here’s yet another Barry M I’ve never seen in shops. Is it just me? Do you see these in your local Superdrug/Boots? We seem to have a standard rainbow but all the really interesting ones come from the Barry M website.

Aqua Blue is essentially a very sheer purple base, packed with blue and green shimmer, giving an overall turquoise effect with a hint of purple duochrome. It’s a gorgeous polish, but not one that I’d wear alone again, much better suited to layering.

Application:

The first thing I have to say about Aqua Blue is that it is sheer and a half! The pictures show 4 coats, and I could still see the free edge. Granted, the shimmer reflected the light so much that often I couldn’t see the nail line (see 1st photo), but it was definitely there. The polish did apply nicely and dried relatively quickly but it’s definitely destined for topcoat-land.

I love love love the colour, especially the hint of duochrome, but I think it’s really only suitable as a layering polish. The green-tone of the shimmer makes your nails look quite dirty underneath, even if they aren’t stained, so I don’t see many people liking this alone.  I might well post some pics of it layered in the near future.

Hope you are all doing well?! I’m enjoying the intermittent sun we keep getting here. It was my Andy’s birthday last week, which was lovely 🙂 I’m taking him shopping (for him!) as a birthday treat.

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Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.