Barry M Silk - Forest And Orchid

Greetings All!

Today I have swatches of two beautiful Barry Ms. I originally went looking for the new Glitterati polishes, but these looked SO much prettier. I ended up with a couple of both!

I passed on the previous Silk collection. I didn't like the combination of the finish and the pastel colours. However, these are much darker, and the effect is just gorgeous.

This is Forest, two coats. These polishes dry to a matte finish, so no topcoat!

I can never resist a matte finish, but this is an especially gorgeous shade of dark green, and the shimmer in it just glows. It does also have a slight duochrome to it, turning blue and indigo at extreme angles. The finish is so soft and perfect, I just love it!

Although I personally wouldn't waste the finish of this polish, I was curious what it would look like with topcoat, and I know some others are the same!

Nowhere near as special, in my opinion. But, it is very glowy.


This is Orchid, again two coats. Matte polishes tend to dry faster, and these did dry faster than regular polish, but not to the point where you have to hurry to get a coat on before it drags.

Another rich, deep colour, an orchid shade as the name suggests. The combination of shimmer and matte give it such a velvety finish, I kept wanting to stroke my nails!

Another topcoated picture, just for fun.

This one does have a really nice glow to it, but I still prefer the matte finish.


I'm not sure when these were released, I haven't seen anything about them, but they're perfect for Autumn and Winter. I got mine in Superdrug, £3.99 each.

WAMM - El Corazon 233

Greetings All!

Today for Work Appropriate Manicure Monday (on a Tuesday, I  know, but never mind). I have an absolutely beautiful polish from El Corazon. This is yet another new-to-me brand - sometimes I think I'm fairly polish savvy, but there must be hundreds of brands out there that I don't even know exist. That actually makes me feel kind of sad...like they're sitting, waiting to be discovered. The anthropomorphism of nail polish - that's totally normal, right?

Anyway, thanks to a very lovely lady in one of my polish groups I am now aware of El Corazon! This is shade 233, a beautiful nude polish with silver shimmer and teeny bronze glitter. This is three coats.

I love this polish! It's absolutely gorgeous, and somehow the glitter makes it more subtle. Something about the slightly mottled look instead of a plain, blank colour. It also really reminds me of a lovely sandy beach, so I decided to add a bit of beachy nail art. This isn't really appropriate for work for me, but I couldn't resist.

Sally Hansen Ivory Skull, Color Club Williamsburg, and a sponge for the waves. The blue is a little too dark, I know that, but I wanted something with a bit of sparkle.

British Nail Bloggers Colour Me Crazy Challenge - Complimentary

Greetings All!

I've reached the penultimate stage of this challenge! I don't have anything prepped for next week, but I'm determined to complete this challenge. It's been the only one I've taken part in so far this year, and I'll be annoyed at myself if I don't!

This week the prompt is 'complimentary', and I decided to use some of the new Barry M Gellys. I was really good and only bought the four I really wanted - once upon a time I would have bought them all, just to have the full collection! I went for Cocoa, Paprika, Mustard and Chilli. They seem to compliment each other rather well.

Sugar spun nails are yet another technique that I haven't done in forever. They're a lot of fun, because you get to mess around with polish. Dripping it out of the bottle, stirring it around until it gets all thick and stringy and goopy...things you aren't really supposed to do with polish. Things that seem wasteful. But then you use it to make nail art!

I like these colours together. I also like that I got to use them all together.

UK Indies - TarasTalons Returns! (Halloween Polish Alert!)

*These products were provided for review*

Greetings All!

Exciting news! TarasTalons is reopening, at 00:01 on the 21st of September. Technically Sunday morning, but I will be thinking of it as Saturday night. Three new collections will be released, plus a topcoat collection, and I have swatches of some of the polishes that will be available! Tara has new labels, plus new round mini bottles that match the full sized ones, and they look really good!

I'm also excited because there is a Halloween collection, the Scream collection. A great film, and a great idea to theme polish around. Tara definitely won Halloween last year, so I have high expectations!

Before I get to the swatches, I also have a discount code for you. You can use the code 'BACK50' for the first 24 hours to get an amazing 50% off!

On to the swatches. Of course I have to show you the Halloween polishes first. This is Ghost Face, 2 coats without undies.

White crelly base, loaded with black shards, hexes and circles. As soon as I learned about the Scream collection, I was hoping for something like this. Ghoulish and gorgeous! Perfect coverage, too.

Next, I Told You Not To Hang Up, two coats without undies.

This is my favourite. Just the sort of raspberry shade I can never resist, loaded with all kinds of black glitter, and a sprinkle of holo sparkle. It gives great coverage too, as it's very pigmented, but not too opaque. You could possibly get away with one thick coat.

Next up I have a polish from the Autumn collection. This is Blackberry, again two coats without undies.

A rich, dark purple with magenta glitter and red hexes. It's a perfect Autumn colour. The base is quite opaque, and it has covered up some of the glitter, but there is still plenty peeking out. 

Finally, Party! from the Return Of The Randoms collection. This is two coats over white.

This polish did strange things to my camera! It looks like the base is tinted pink, but it isn't. It's just a predominantly pink mix. There are some hearts and stars in the mix, and I really like the pop of blue. A very cute neon topper.

These, and many more, will all be available at 00:01 on the 21st of September, in 5ml and 10ml bottles, here. You can also see Tara's own swatches (and there are loads) on the TarasTalons  Facebook page. Remember the code 'BACK50' to get 50% off, but only for the first 24 hours!

UK Indies - Freckles Polish Autumn And HALLOWEEN Polishes!!

*These products were provided for review*

Greetings All!

I'm excited. I've been swatching my first Halloween polishes of the season! Last year I got an amazing haul of Halloween polishes, and I'm getting twitchy already over the thought of expanding my collection. If you hadn't noticed, I love Halloween!

To kick off the season I have two Halloween themed polishes from Freckles Polish. The collection is called I'm Spooked, and will be released on the 26th of September. I also have two lovely holos from the Autumn Dreams Collection, but I have to do these two first because, as I said, I'm excited!

That excitement had led to a pretty picture heavy post. You have been warned!

British Nail Bloggers Colour Me Crazy Challenge! Week 10 - Pastel

Greetings All!

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get something done for this prompt. I've been suffering from a major lack of inspiration lately, and when I do paint my nails, they aren't very pastel. A lot of black polish is being used around here.


Thankfully I remembered I have a whole folder of other people's nails bookmarked, either to inspire me, or because they were so nice that I just...needed to be able to look at them again!


Last Summer I saw these nails on PenguinsLeftGreenPolish (a fellow BNB and fellow leftie!), and they were so cute I couldn't stand it! I like to think of it more as an homage than straight up pinching the design, so I hope that's OK!


Pastel nails.

I really loved how Nada created the cone design with stamping, and even though I said I was avoiding stamping for this challenge, I've allowed myself. Trying to freehand this pattern when I have the stamps just sitting there just seems silly!


For the cones I used Etude House Ice Cream Nails in Peach, Barry M Matte in Mocha and PUEEN25. The ice creams are the Models Own Fruit Pastel collection. I was super lazy and just painted them on straight from the bottle. Then matte topcoat, for that sugary sweet look.


I've also managed to get next week's nails done. So I only have one more manicure to do for this challenge! As it's the only challenge I've done so far this year, I'm quite pleased with myself.

An InLinkz Link-up

Galaxy Nails!

Greetings All!

Every single time I do galaxy nails, I kick myself for not doing them more often. There is never quite as much faffing as I think there will be, and without wanting to sound big-headed, I've never done a bad one. I don't think I've even ever seen a bad galaxy manicure! Obviously some combinations work better than others, but it's practically a fool-proof technique.


These nails are actually pretty similar to the last ones I did, because I really liked the orange and pink in them. Horrifyingly, in my last post I swore I wouldn't leave it 8 months between galaxy manicures, and it's been 7 months! Bad me!

My left hand came out better than my right hand. This isn't that unusual for me - I think with this particular technique, it helps when they're slightly less neat. What is unusual for me is that both hands have nails of a similar length - my left hand is normally shorter because they break more frequently.

I do like my thumb - it's all...swooshy!


I used my ever faithful W7 Black as a base, then OPI Arctic Snow to 'map out' the galaxies. The colours are Barry M Gelly in Mango, OPI Koala Beary, Funky Dunkey, and Austin-tacious Turquoise. AT is my galaxy manicure 'hack', and I use it just about every time. Something about the colour and the sparkle just makes it perfect for that ethereal, outer space look. I added a coat of Butter London Frilly Knickers for a bit (or in this case, quite a lot!) of sparkle, and some stars in white.

I wonder how many months will pass before my next one!

WAMM Leopard

Greetings All!

This manicure actually marks a bit of a special occasion. One of my polishes has been plucked from it's home to become one of my stamping polishes, a decision I do not take lightly!

Here's how it works in my little nail world. I have a box with my stamping polishes in (i.e. Konad), and also my 'polishes that stamp'. These are regular polishes that I use nearly exclusively for stamping, for example Barry M Gold and Silver Foils. Polishes that stamp that I also use as regular polish live in their particular drawer in my Helmers, sorted by colour. So for a polish to be in the box, it's 'stampability' must outweigh it's...normal polishing abilities. A good example is Barry M Gelly in Plum. It stamps so well, I rarely use it as regular polish any more.

That crazy rambling aside, Barry M Matte in Mocha is my new polish that stamps. I've been using it a lot for work appropriate stamping recently, and it has met my needs so, so well! Visible, yet subtle, a great shade over nudes, and it also stamps very well.

Good old Barry M! I think apart from Sally Hansen Insta Dri, they are one of the best brands of polish to stamp with (apart from stamping polishes). Most of the Gelly range will stamp at a push, ditto most of the matte polishes, and of course their fantastic foils.

This is Barry M Matte in Mocha, MoYou Punk XL 06, over No7 So Simple (still one of my favourite nudes, two years later).


Is everyone else as...enthusiastic about their stamping polishes? Also, would a list of my polishes that stamp be a useful thing for people?

Colour Me Crazy! Neon

Greetings All!

Check me out, getting the week's post in with time to spare! This is where it all falls apart though, as I don't have any more nails prepped, and so far I have zero inspiration for next week. So well see what happens!

This week the theme is neon. I'm becoming a bit of a neon convert, but I'm still not at the point where I would be happy to wear full on neon nails. I don't like how I can always see them out of the corner of my eye, and I'm not really a neon type of person. So these are neon nails, but I have also covered them in black!

I never seem to use striping tape often enough to get good at it! I also really wish I had repeated the thumb pattern on all my nails (and I did my thumb first, so I have no excuse!).

Long list of polishes used here. A base of OPI Arctic Snow, then Color Club Get Your Lem-on, The Lime Starts Here, I Always Get My Man-darin, Yum Gum, and Raspberry Rush (because I will buy neon polish if it's scented!), an unnamed blue Color Club, a purple neon OPI that I've forgotten the name of (I'm doing well with names at the moment!), and a Sinful Color neon yellow striper, because Get Your Lem-on wasn't quite bright enough. I just painted random stripes with the polish brush, then taped it and covered with W7 Black. Neon nails done!

An InLinkz Link-up

While I'm On The Subject Of Black And White...

Greetings All!

While I was sorting through yesterday's challenge pictures, I was looking at this manicure. I was a little tempted to post it instead, as I prefer it! However I vowed to make the effort not to stamp too much for that challenge, and it seemed silly not to use the manicure I did specifically for it.

I've decided to grab hold of the little bit of motivation I currently have, and post two days in a row!

W7 Black, Konad White, and MoYou London Biker XL 10.

This may be my new favourite stamp! I do like skulls, and it's nice to have a 'uniform' pattern, instead of an individual skull that I'll probably stamp wonky!

Colour Me Crazy Challenge - Black And White

Greetings All!

Yet another week escaped me. I've been meaning to post these since last Wednesday, but I have a major case of the can't-be-bothereds.

It was difficult not to stamp for this prompt. Konad Black and White are regular visitors to my nails, and it would have been so simple. However, I'm making the effort to ...make an effort!

I'm slowly coming to the realisation that I don't really like an accent nail - I prefer them all to match!

For this manicure I opened a new bottle of OPI Alpine Snow, as I finished the last one a good couple of bottles ago! The black on my ring finger is W7 Black, but I used Barry M Black for the dots, as my W7 is getting a little thick. I don't mind painting it on, but it's pretty useless for nail art.

An InLinkz Link-up