Barry M - Limited Edition - Golden Sands

Pinkish nude with gold shimmer  

Golden Sands is a Boots exclusive Barry M.

It's a peach nude creme that is packed with gold flakie shimmer - super pretty!

Swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.  As you can see this polish doesn't have a super shiny finish.

Unfortunately this was limited edition for Summer 2016 so you might have trouble getting hold of this one.

BarryM Aquarium - Persian

Gorgeous purple bronze duochrome  

Happy New Year to all my Readers! 

May your year be full of gorgeous polishes at bargain prices with no pesky nail breaks.  

Well that's what I'm hoping for!


2015 was my lowest posting year so far so I'm going to try and get back in the zone for 2016....

My last post of 2015 was a duochrome and my first of 2016 is too!

Which means lots of pics to show off the duochrome gorgeousness

Duochrome just at the tips

Full Sun to show the sparkles

Max Duochrome in bottle and on nails!

Aquarium was a collection launched back in Spring 2014, initially with four mirror duochromes and two glitter topcoats.   In Autumn they added another duochrome and another glitter.  The duochrome was Persian.

Persian is a stunning purple/bronze shifting mirror duochrome.  The shift is strong and the colours really work well together.  And the 'base' purple is stunning in it's own right.  I love it!

I always forget to apply duochromes over black so these swatches are 3 coats with no top coat.

Barry M Superdrug Limited Edition 2013 - Fluorescent Pink

Fluoro pink jelly   

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition 2013 Pink was a freebie available from Superdrug with a certain spend, £6 IIRC.

It's a pale fluorescent pink jelly with a special zebra print lid.

It's a jelly so not totally opaque after 3 coats.  No top coat.

Barry M - Turquoise

Turquoise creme

Sorry for the hiatus, I scheduled posts for while I was away in Madrid for a week (no polish shopping sadly) but then was on a weeks work project and then developed a horrible lurgy which is still hanging on...

Working my way through my extensive back stash of swatch pics as my nails are still pretty stubby after growing out a few low nail bed splits.

Barry M Turquoise is a actually more of a bright blue with a hint of turquoise rather than a true turquoise which to me should lean a little more green.

Swatch shown is 2 coats with no top coat.  Application was good.

Barry M - Christmas Pink

Pink foil GWP   

In the run up to Christmas Barry M had an offer where if you spent £5.99 or more you got a free nail polish. Boots and Superdrug both had different polishes on offer.  Boots had the choice of a pink or gold foil.  I picked the pink foil to show you today.

In Superdrug they had an icy blue foil and a mixed glitter - more on that later as it turns out there were two different versions of the glitter...

Back to Christmas Pink...

Christmas Pink is a Pink foil with a silvery streak and a smidge of gold thrown in too.

It's very opaque, the swatches are only one coat, but 2 would probably have be better.

They also changed the lids to match so Christmas Pink has a pink metallic lid.

I was super impressed with this, it was easy to apply, almost totally opaque in one coat and I liked the colour/finish much more than I expected.

Anyone else pick this up?

I decided to pop some glitter over the top, a single coat of a Color Club holo glitter that I got in a boxset and so doesn't have a name/label (grrrgghh, that so annoys me!)

Sorry the swatches of this one are pre-cleanup....

Barry M - Grey

Mid grey crème


Shade


Sun

Grey swatch is shown with 2 coats, no topcoat.

Another great Barry M creme, I don't think I've had a duff one of these yet. Grey (does what it says on the tin!) is a mid grey creme, it's very pigmented, application was great and it's very shiny without a topcoat. What more could you want?

Barry M - Indigo

After the disappointment of the Lil Blings I thought I'd share a recent polish that exceeded my expectations.

A few weeks ago I shared Barry M Mushroom which I'd been seeking after seeing mentions in blogland. As Barry M was 2 for £5 it seemed rude not to get two, I was looking for Dusky Mauve, the Chanel Paradoxal dupe but no luck so I picked up Indigo instead.





Indigo is a stunning blurple creme- this is 2 coats, no topcoat. I tweaked the first photo to make it more colour accurate - all others pics are as is and not colour accurate, all polishes are more purple and less blue.

As soon as I applied it I thought it might be similar to several others in my collection, namely Collection 2000 Parma Violets, Nails Inc Belgrave Place, Models Own Blu Gem and Bourjois Bleu Violet so I thought I'd do some quick comparisons.


l-r Bourjois Bleu Violet, Collecion 2000 Parma Violet, BarryM Indigo, BarryM Indigo

Although it doesn't look like it in the picture Bleu Violet looked a total dupe IRL whereas Parma Violets was slightly darker and more purple


l-r Models Own Blu Gem, Nails Inc Belgrave Place, BarryM Indigo, BarryM Indigo

As you can see these weren't as similar as I thought, Blu Gem is lighter and Belgrave Place is lighter still and has more of a dusky tone. And Blu Gem is not as shiny as the others.

All of these are 2 coats with no top coat.

I swatched Indigo right after Mushroom and loved it so much I reapplied it as a full mani after the comparison shots and wore it on my recent 4-day business trip to Germany. I wasn't expecting too much from a £2.50 polish and took remover and other polish with me expecting to have to replace it, but it held up amazingly well.



This pic is after 4½ days - unfortunately as I'd already swatched the colour I didn't make note of the base or topcoat but IIRC it was a nails inc basecoat and either nails inc or seche vite or Diamont as top coat!!

I love this polish, IRL it's much more intense that the pics show and the wear was amazing for me with any polish let alone a cheapie!

Anyone else had amazing wear from cheap polish?

Barry M - Mushroom

I'd seen mention of this on the interwebs and then when I popped into Boots to pick up a sandwich, Barry M was on offer - 2 for £5 so I picked up this and another new one, Indigo.


Sun


Shade

Mushroom is a slightly pink toned milky brown creme. It doesn't really have any of the grey, taupe or purple tones we've seen a lot of over the past year.

This is 2 coats with topcoat.  Application was good as you'd expect from Barry M.  I like this colour and the formula - all this goodness for less than the cost of my lunch!