Barielle Blackened Bleu

This is Barielle's Blackened Bleu, which I got in a swap with the lovely Squeakymom. This is two coats, with topcoat.

Blackened Bleu (god, I do so love a pun!) is a gorgeous dark jellyish base with blueish green shimmery particles. I've seen lots of swatches of this on blogs which make it look very very blue, but mine has a definite green tinge, so I wonder if there is more than one version is out there.  Either that or my eyesight is going, and that is a distinct possibility.

I don't know where Squeakymom bought this, or how long ago. I have only ever seen Barielle in the UK in TK Maxx, where they often have sets of 4 or more shades, but I've never seen this one in shops.

I love how sparkly this is in the evening sunshine! I did have a bit of shrinkage round the tips by the evening, but I think that was the Seche Vite rather than the Barielle.

What do you think?

Born Pretty Store Review - Gold Foil Decal Sticker - Snowflakes!

If you are at all into nail art, or you read nail blogs, you have undoubtably heard of the Born Pretty Store!  I've bought from them before, having bought studs and striping tape after seeing them being used on other blogs. So when I was offered the chance to review some of their products, I leapt at the opportunity!  This is the first of what I suspect may be several posts!

The first item I chose was item 4606, the 3D Golden Foil Metal Nail Art Tips Sticker Decal Slice (click for link). It's a bit of a mouthful, but you get this wheel full of fab, gold, shiny shapes. There are bows, hearts, flowers, Hello Kitties, bells, butterflies, snowflakes, and some fashion brand logos as well. I'm not so bothered about the Dior/Chanel type ones, but the rest are lovely, and there are so many!

The pieces are made of strong foil, and while they're originally quite flat, you can also bend them carefully to fit the shape of your nail.  As today we have heavy snow (I've taken the day off work), I'm wearing two coats of Barielle Swizzle Stix and some of the snowflake pieces. 

I love these! They're so shiny and pretty and they're so easy to use. I just dropped them onto fresh Seche Vite, and then added another coat of Seche over that, and that's it! They're so thin and light that the slices don't stick out or feel heavy, and they lie flat against the nail, so they're not catching on anything.

I bought my ring on Amazon, by the way.

These pretty shapes are available at the Born Pretty Store for $2.99, with free worldwide shipping!  I've bought happily from the BPS before, and my deliveries have always been really fast (they say 3-5 weeks, but they've always come in under 2), well packaged, and in perfect condition.  If you fancy trying these, or any of their other products, I'm excited to be able to pass on a 10% discount for my readers - use code AKJ61 at the checkout. Click on the voucher to go straight to the store. (Check out the glow in the dark nail varnish! It looks amazing, and I've seen some fabulous reviews of it online too!)

I received this product for review purposes, but words and opinions are entirely my own. I do not receive anything if you use my discount code, although when it's been used ten times, BPS will let me host a giveaway for my readers! See my Disclosure page for more details.  

MUA Nail Constellations (Caviar Nails)

Certain brands (who shall not be named) market something called 'caviar nails', which sells at ridiculous prices for a bottle of polish and a jar of tiny beads. You can do your own, using any old polish and tiny beads bought in a craft store. I had never got round to bothering though. However, cheap highstreet UK brand MUA (Make Up Academy) has now launched their 'nail constellations' range. These sell for £3 in Superdrug, but they were doing a 3-for-2, so these only cost £2 each. 

First up is MUA Gemini. This is a blend of tiny pale pink, turquoise and lilac beads. The pink nail varnish is Essie's We're In It Together, which I bought this weekend. We're In It Together was from Essie's breast cancer awareness collection of pinks earlier in the year.  It's a lovely shimmery pale baby pink, with bluey white flashes in it. This is three coats. I have to say, this Essie was not very nice - it looks lovely, but my brush was a bit thick and uneven, and the application was streaky and took absolutely ages to dry.

The MUA bottle has a tiny spout, so you can pour out the beads carefully. You paint one nail, and while the polish is still tacky, either pour the beads on, or dip your finger in beads that you've pre-poured. I found pouring to be the best way, with my hand held over a piece of tinfoil to catch all the excess beads. You can then pull off the pointy spout, and pour the beads back in. 

As you can see, the MUA bottle is small, but there are enough beads here to last for absolutely ages. The beads felt really odd on my nail, and I kept touching them, which did make several fall off. I added some topcoat, but that wasn't a success - it dulled the colour and made the texture look a bit claggy and odd.

This is take two - using MUA Leo over Barielle's Swizzle Stix.

Swizzle Stix was a swap gift from Squeakymom.  It's very similar to Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, although perhaps a touch brighter.  The formula on this was a bit thick and draggy, and I had to trim the brush for a few stray hairs pointing in all directions, but after two coats it levelled itself out and became a lot smoother, and dried to a lovely shine. This is without topcoat. 

The beads in Leo are a mix of blue and purple. This time I think I applied them a bit more densely, as you can't see so many gaps between them. I also pressed them into the nail a bit more than on my first go, and they lasted well throughout me hanging up the washing, and making toast. I didn't notice any blue and purple sprinkles in my toast, so i think this was a success!

Barry M Denim - and another ring!

Ooooh! I'm not usually a huge fan of blue nail varnish (although there are several I like) but I LOVE this one!  This is Barry M Denim. 

This is one coat, with topcoat.  Denim is a gorgeous, rich blue, with lots of shimmery silver particles in it. It's not sparkly at all, but the shimmer really adds depth to the blue. 

Coverage is really good - one coat was fine (although I did add a second the next day to cover the tip wear). Denim dries matte, which was also a nice look, but adding topcoat really makes it come alive.


I wore this with my latest bit of nail varnish jewellery, a ring made with Barielle's Elle's Spell (which I posted about here). I LOVE Elle's Spell, it's such a gorgeous colour. This is about five coats of Elle's Spell! I love how it moves between red and gold and greenish orange in the sunlight.

See? Isn't it pretty?

Blue Ombre Nails

I bought yet another new Barry M creme the other day, Cyan Blue. While I was messing around trying it out alongside other blues, I decided to do an ombre.

Little finger is Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, ring finger is Barry M Cyan Blue, middle finger is Barry M Cobalt Blue. Index is Nails Inc Baker Street, and thumb is Barry M Navy Blue.

In real life the difference between the blues is more obvious, but for some reason my camera has made the Blueberry Ice Cream and Cyan Blue very similar, and the Cobalt and Baker Street very similar. In reality, they aren't!

The only one of these that isn't a simple creme is Barry M's Navy Blue, which always makes me think of the paint on some cars. It's got a lovely deep shimmery quality to it.

Mickey wanted to get in this photo!

I'm a bit worried that I was sure I'd cleaned up neatly and that my cuticles looked fine - but then in the photos they look all dry and messy still! I really think I must need an eye test!

After a day of these, I decided to add some silver. This is Barielle's Night Moves, part of the cheapy set I found in TKMaxx a couple of weeks ago. It's a nice looking silver, I like it!  I did these lines with sellotape - just added two bits on each nail and painted in between.  

The lines aren't exactly even, but they're close enough.

Barielle - Elle's Spell

I was on a no-buy of nail varnish, what with having far too many, and being a bit broke. But I popped in to TKMaxx and ended up buying NINE bottles. It would have been madness not to. I got a set of 4 Nails Inc (sparkly shiny ones with duochromey bits in, I think) for £14.99 and a set of 5 Barielles (never tried them before, there are 4 foils and a goooorgeous glittery red, Elle's Spell) for £9.99.

This is Elle's Spell. It's a lovely crimson jelly full of red-gold glittery flakes. This is one coat of a plain red creme (Rimmel Heart on Fire) and then two coats of Elle's Spell.  Excuse the shrinking at the tips - I assume this was the Seche Vite effect. 

This looks amazing in sunlight - but sadly I didn't get time to take photos in the sun before I left for work, and by the time I came home it was overcast.

This is my first Barielle polish, and I like it! Nice bottle, nice brush, nice application. Nothing to blow me away, but nothing to complain about. And what a gorgeous colour! I love how it glows gold and firey in the sunlight.