Nail of the Week – Barry M Blue Moon and Mint Green

This week I jumped on the summer pastel nail trend to brighten up my nails in the gloomy, rainy, British summer weather. The two colours I used are Barry M’s Blue Moon, a pale baby blue and Mint Green which is...well mint green :)

 I used Sally Hansen’s Nailgrowth as my base coat then applied two coats of each nail polish, alternating nails between colours, and then the Sally Hansen polish again as my top coat. I love Barry M nail polishes as for only £2.99 I feel you get such good quality nail polishes with an amazing consistency and are long lasting on the nails. The ones I used this week were opaque in just 2 coats and lasted 5 days on my nails before chipping. 

What are your favourite summer nail trends?

Nail of the Day: OPI’s Pedal Faster Suzi! And Pirouette My Whistle

Just a quick nail of the day post using two of my favourite OPI polishes from recently released collections, both of which have been mentioned in previous OPI collection posts if you want more information on the individual polishes!

I used Pedal Faster Suzi! on all of my nails, having to do 3 coats for an opaque effect. I then used Pirouette My Whistle with just one coat on my index finger and my Sally Hansen Nailgrowth as a topcoat. I loved the effect left on my nails with this combination of polishes, very Barbie-esque. :)

Revlon Scented Nail Enamel

As you may have gathered from the number of nail polish posts on my blog that I have a slight nail polish obsession! I’d heard about the Revlon Scented Nail Enamels whilst watching a recent YouTube video and couldn’t wait to get my hands on some of them. I’m not the biggest fan of the generic nail polish smell and I hate the fact it lingers, so the thought of fruity scented nail polish was right up my street.

I popped into my local Superdrug, which unfortunately didn’t have the biggest selection of Revlon nail polishes, so I picked up the three that they did have. The three I picked up were “Grapefruit Fizz” – a bright glittery baby pink, “Watermelon Fizz” – a glittery coral/red and “Grape Fizz” – a deep glittery purple.

"Grapefruit Fizz", "Watermelon Fizz", "Grape Fizz"

When applied, all being glittery nail polishes, the coverage if extremely sheer so it took 2-3 coats of each polish to get an opaque effect on my nails. You do get the usual nail polish scent when applying, although not as strong, but when the nails began to dry the fruity scent was instantly noticeable. The scents are gorgeous, long lasting and not too invasive. “Grapefruit Fizz” was definitely my favourite out of the 3 polishes. The nail polish itself lasted 2/3 days on my nails before chipping and for the price of £6.49 each I would have liked it to last for a little bit longer. I’m looking forward to trying a few more of the varnishes from this new range.

Have you tried any of the scented polishes from Revlon? What’s your favourite?

Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray

As we start to get officially into summer, not that you would be able to tell with the lovely British weather lately, my skin’s feeling the change. In the winter my skin becomes extremely dry and it’s a mission to keep it moisturised, however, as we move into the spring and summer months my skin comes more under the dry-combination category with dry cheeks and, by midday, an oily t-zone. 

Taking this into account I’ve been on the search for a good setting spray to help me keep my makeup on all day. I’d heard amazing reviews for the Skindinavia setting spray products, but since they aren’t that easy to get a hold of in the UK, I thought I’d give the Urban Decay All Nighter a go since it is produced by Skindinavia.

The all-nighter spray claims to keep makeup evenly distributed so that it looks just applied for 16 hours. It is also said to be infused with a cooling technology. After applying your makeup you simply hold the spray bottle 30 cm away from your face and spray evenly two to four times. My first thought was, “ok this is sticky”, but it dries in just a few seconds! I’ve been using this spray for nearly 3 months now every single day to the point where I don’t feel the need to wear a primer underneath my makeup anymore and the bonus of not even finishing the bottle yet! I’m not sure that I can agree with it making your make up last for 16 hours looking like it’s been freshly done as I still find that I have to reapply some of my makeup throughout the day, however, I do not have to apply it as frequently maybe after 5/6 hours! For the cooling technology side of things, I haven't really used it to cool my face down due to all the lovely rain, but it does feel cool on the face when applied.

This has definitely been a “go to” product for me over the last few months and I will be repurchasing in the future! For £19.00 and the amount of time that it has lasted I feel it is worth the money!

Do you have a favourite make up setting spray?

Barry M Magnetic Nail Paints

This week I decided to paint my nails Jubilee inspired for this bank holiday weekend! :) Barry M released their magnetic nail paints a few months ago and having a Barry M nail paint addiction I couldn’t help but pick them up!  For my Jubilee inspired nails I used Burgundy Magnetic on my ring fingers and Blue Magnetic on the rest. 

Left: Burgundy Right: Blue

The nail paint packaging comes with a “magnetic lid” which you pull off in order to get to the nail paint bottle underneath. On front of the “magnetic lid” there are golden patterns. At first I just thought this was a random design for the bottles but after using them on my nails I realised that the patterns on the lid are the patterns that appear on your nails for each nail paints. So, in my case, the Burgundy nail paint created a diagonal striped pattern when used with the magnetic and the Blue nail paint created a swirled pattern! 

If you’ve not used magnetic nail paints before they are very straight forward to use but it can be time consuming as to get the best results you cannot rush it! First I applied a base coat, Sally Hansen’s nailgrowth miracle, and then applied one coat of the nail paint to my nails, NOT USING THE MAGNET.  Once my nails were completely dry I then went nail by nail applying a thin coat of the polish, from experience the thinner the coat the better the pattern turns out, and then hovered the magnetic lid over my nail for around once and a half to two minutes. You have to be careful not to let the magnet touch the nail as it can affect the effect of the magnet when you use it in future. Once I repeated this on all my nails and let them dry I applied the Sally Hansen nailgrowth again as a topcoat and voila :)

I love magnetic nail polishes as they have such a unique effect on your nails and each nail is different from the rest!  :)

What’s your favourite type of polish?