Barry M - Autumn Nail Varnish Picks

Left to right: Gelly - Lychee, Matte Crush, Matte Caramel, Red Black, Black

£2.99 - £3.99 Barry M Boots

Autumn Break Holiday Nail Polish

Barry M Nail Varnish - £2.99, £3.99 Boots

I'm currently in Turkey enjoying hopefully a bit of sun before winter sets in and these are my four nail varnishes I'm packing. I've tried not to buy any new clothes for this trip as I always regret my odd holiday purchases so these colours go with what I normally wear - nudes, browns, reds and blacks. I've packed both my recent Barry M matte polishes review and also lychee and pomegranate from the Barry M Gelly collection. I think pomegranate is a great holiday colour as it's so bright but still has red tones and is also the perfect toe polish. I have a bit of a problem when it comes to nail varnishes and I normally pack way more than I ever use so this year I've tried to keep it simple with two nudes and two colours I know I'll wear. 

Barry M - Matte Nail Varnish Autumn 2013

Barry M Matte Nail Varnish - £3.99 Boots

Barry M have bought out so many new releases to their nail varnish range this year but the autumn winter matte collection has easily been the one that has got me most excited. The range has come out in 5 shades - espresso (black), crush (burgundy), caramel, vanilla (light nude) and mocha (mid brown). I could have easily picked up all five shades but decided to stick to crush and caramel as I do own a matte top coat so it definitely wasn't necessary for me to own these but I wanted them so much. I love matte nail varnish and these shades are perfect for autumn. Above is the polish using two coats and like all Barry M polish they cover well and have good lasting power. I'm going to resist buying the other three as I really don't need them but I love this entire collection it was hard to choose just two shades as they are all perfect for this season.

Coral Peach Orange - Nail Obsessions

Left to Right: Models Own Hed Kandi Hedonist (review) Barry M Gelly Satsuma (review) Essie Orange It's Obvious (review) Barry M Gelly Papaya (review) Models Own Peaches and Cream

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Nail Varnish - Satsuma & Papaya

Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Varnish - £3.99 Boots

Jumped on the bandwagon of these polishes and o my I'm so glad I did. These went a little crazy on the blogosphere during my lent beauty spending ban and these were easily the hardest things I had stop myself from buying. I love Barry M polishes and the lure of an even shinier lacquer had me straight there when lent was over. Typically I picked up the two peach/ coral toned polishes (satsuma and papaya) and I adore them. They're ridiculously glossy and glide onto the nails easily. I now want all the shades and I'm sure many more of them will be joining my nail polish collection soon. 

Spring Time Nail Favourites

 Barry M Gelly Hi Shine - Papaya, Barry M Mint Green. Models Own Lemon Meringue, Essie Bikini So Teeny,  Models Own Scented Strawberry Tart. 

The sun came out briefly and two things happened - my washing went on the line for a brief few hours and I dug out my spring pastels to adorn my nails with. These are my five favourites by far - I love pastels at this time of the year and I will be wearing these shades all season long probably way into the summer too. Essie Bikini So Teeny is probably my favourite as the formula is amazing and it's unlike any other shade I own.

Coral Ombre Summer Nails

I've seen a few nail designs similar to this on Pinterest and since I have the weeky dilemma of 'which coral shade do I wear?' as it is a firm summer favourite! I thought this would be perfect at dissolving that dilemma all you need is three or more shades of one colour - or just colours that go together. I'm thinking rainbow would look gorgeous! You also need a clean make-up sponge. You can get them anywhere (think pound shop ladies) but I had some left over from ages ago from Boots they retail for about £4 for a massive bag of them.  

So how to get the look: 

Apply a decent base coat to your nails

You need to dunk the sponge into a glass of cold water

Then paint on your shades in lines in the order you want them on your nails 

Apply once across all nails then let dry 

Continue on all nails until the colour is built up to your desired shade (I did three coats) 

Building it up also gives a more graduated effect rather than strips of colour 

Clean up the sides of your nails with a cotton bud soaked in nail varnish remover

Let it all dry then seal with a clear top coat :) 

I used Barry M Coral and Peach Melba and Models Own Fuzzy Peach 

Voila! 

This is probably the easiest nail art I've ever done and I think it's so effective. I love it - perfect summer nails in my opinion - now just need to finish this uni malarkey and make my way to the airport :) I have some delicious yellow's that I think would suit this so well with a tan! 

Has anyone else tried ombre nails? 

Leopard Print Nail Art.

I've been meaning to give this ago for ages as I've seen it everywhere so thought I'd post my attempt at it. 

I decided to do a natural nude leopard print design and I used - 

Models Own - Nyla Nude 

Models Own - Champagne 

Maybelline Forever Strong

Marks and Spencer Clear Nail Varnish 

Barry M - Chocolate Brown 

I bought my nail art dotting tool from eBay here. 99p delivered from Hong Kong you really can't go wrong. I have made my own prior to receiving this which I might do a post on in the future but really can not fault the one I bought from eBay - so cheap and perfect for a whole host of nail art designs can't praise it enough. 

I used Maybelline forever strong as a base as my nails are suffering at the moment then painted two coats of Nyla Nude over. 

I used Chocolate Brown as the base for the leopard print and randomly dotted it over each nail in dots and semi-circles. 

Then I accented the brown with Models Own Champagne to highlight and fill in the dots. Finally I added a gloss of clear top coat to set all the colours. 

I think my first attempt is a little messy but I love how easy it was. It looks much better from a bit of a distance close up looks a little random! I'm looking forward to trying out so many different nail designs with my new dotting tools. I think leopard print will look so cute in pink shades! 

If you have any nail art links please send them over I'm in need of some inspiration for mine :) 

Nude Wine, Today's Nails

As I am knee deep in revision, work and an essay so just a quick nail combination today. I've also noticed that my addiction to diamanté and glitter over Christmas and New Year has ruined my nails a bit ... 

does anyone have any tips on getting glitter varnish off without scrubbing nails raw? 

It would be much appreciated because my nails are ruined at the moment!

Models Own - Nyla Nude 

Barry M - Raspberry 

I literally can't stop wearing burgundy at the moment, I think it's since my hair has become the same colour. I don't really like all my nails to be dark unless I'm going for a really dramatic effect and I really like these two shades together so just want for a standard nude on all nails raspberry on my ring finger. Nyla Nude is another gift from Santa that I've been lusting over for ages and it's easily my favourite nude shade - it has a slightly peachy tone to it that I really like and as all Model Own polishes does no amazingly. 

The Pinker The Better - NYE Nails.

So I am having a little the night before New Years Eve beautifying session which mainly involved removing red hair dye (post to follow) and have created the girliest pinkest nails imaginable whilst doing so. 

I really do get bored of just having one colour on my nails and boy does it show here ... 

Barry M - Pink Flamingo 

Barry M - Bright Pink 

Models Own - Pastel Pink 

Models Own - Pink Fizz 

Diamanté - silver, light pink and bright pink 

I painted all of my nails different shades of pinks and one on each hand in pink fizz. On the fingers that weren't pink fizz and bar one I painted the tips with pink fizz too. 

Then on the one I didn't add a pink fizz tip too I covered in bright pink, light pink and silver diamanté from a diamanté wheel I got from eBay for just a few pounds. 

I'm not even sure what I'm wearing yet as my original dress is a little too glam and uncomfortable for my night in planned with friends. But I don't want to take these nails off so it's looking like it'll be pink or black :)

Planning outfits around my nails, o dear. 

Christmas Nails, Strike One.

I've been trying to wait until nearer Christmas to use my Santa nail wraps, but I just couldn't wait any longer. So as a compromise to myself I decided to just use one for my ring finger. And actually much prefer just one or a few maybe as lots of little santa heads might be a bit much! 

Barry M -Rasberry 

Nails Inc - Victoria and Albert 

Nail Art Pen - Red Glitter

Nail Wraps - Santa Claus 

I went a bit crazy and did alternate red nails with my ring finger in the Santa nail wrap. I think for Christmas I might keep Santa on my ring finger and red glitter on all my other nails as I'm a little bit obsessed with glitter at the moment. May even through in some red diamanté! I'm glad I tested the nail wraps out actually as I need to  grow my nails to fit Santa's hat on :) 

Peach Melba, Today's Nails.

After putting up my nail rack it emerged I had lots of delicious colours I hadn't seen in ages! 

So today's nails were simple.

Barry M - Peach Melba on all nails except ring finger

Models Own - A brightish coral colour for the ring finger the name of this one has fallen off so not sure its exact name. 

Glitter & Animal Print - Today's Nails

I've had so much uni work recently I haven't had time to do my nails properly so they've just been painted nude. However due to a cancelled seminar I had a spare bit of time to experiment.

I really do think having all of your nails the same colour is only necessary if you need to look prim and proper and today I really put this to the test. On my 10 fingers I have 3 different types of nail wrap, 3 nail colours and some diamanté.

Models Own - Champagne (my favourite metallic ever!)

Barry M - Mushroom 

Nail Art Pen - Gold Glitter

Nail Rock - Metallic Leopard Print Wraps

eBay wraps - gold snakeskin 

eBay wraps - gold floral 

Gold diamanté from a diamanté wheel 

Altogether they look really fun and as most of my wardrobe is animal print or shades of brown they will go with everything! The nail wraps usually last for about a week so having some nails in varnish as well means I can change these as the week goes on. 

Girls Only: Todays Nails

Todays nails: 

Models Own - Pastel Pink 

Barry M - Bright Pink 

Maybelline - Forever Strong Top Coat 

Nail Art Pen - Pink Glitter

Nail Art Pen - White

Today's nails are probably the the girliest nails I could have put together. I used Model's own pastel pink colour on all my nails except my ring finger. Two coats of this and you end up with most delicious shade of pastel pink. I then painted my ring finger in Barry M bright pink - which is a pretty garish shade of pink but is deliciously bright if you're feeling very pink. 

I then painted the tips of all my nails in white with a line of pink glitter underneath. Once completely dry I applied a coat of maybelline forever strong to seal it all on. 

They couldn't get more girly or pink but I'm just in that mood today :)