NOTD Gelly Texture

Hello! I've been in the midst of quite a bit of work at the moment, as it's coming to crunch time and my exams are fast approaching, but among all of this, I woke up this morning and just wanted to paint my nails - I almost never allow myself the time to do this during term time because I've just got too much work to do!! So I thought I'd do a blog post about it at the same time!!

I went for the Barry M texture polish in Kingsland Road which I bought a couple of weeks ago, it is literally THE perfect pastel pink colour, it's so pretty and I think it suits my pale skintone quite nicely if I do say so myself, and gives me the illusion of having more colour than I actually do.. haha! I had a couple of the Barry M Gelly Hi-Shines that I wanted to try out too, as I hadn't used them yet, so I decided to throw in a few accent nails in complimenting pastel shades (Blueberry and Prickly Pear) All in all I'm quite pleased with the results!! All of my nails just took 2 coats and they're pretty much opaque, and they were touch-dry quite fast, which is a massive bonus!

The Gelly Hi-Shines are definitely living up to their expectations and are very glossy without a topcoat, and I really love the texture effect polish, I can't stop running my fingers over it to feel it haha! It has a grainy texture, almost like sand mixed in there, and I think it has a really cool effect on the nails. The pastel shades that they've released in the collection are absolutely perfect because they make your nails look polished (lolgeddit) with the pretty colours, but with an unexpected quirky twist, which is something that I really like.

So overall I'd definitely recommend any of these polishes! It still baffles me as to why people would go out and spend great amounts of money on nail polishes, Barry M are such great polishes, and if they have the right shade for you, GET IT!! They're so cheap but really good quality!

Do you have any of these polishes? What do you think of them?
Eleanor x

Mini Essie Haul

Essie polishes l-r: mint candy apple, lapiz of luxury, lilacism.


So earlier this week I nipped into Superdrug and saw the new Essie stand! Essie has been quite difficult to get hold of in the UK until Boots and Superdrug recently began stocking their polishes, which is obviously very exciting, and seeing as Superdrug had a 3for2 offer on at the moment I decided to pick some up. Essie have such an amazing shade range and they get it just right with all their colours, I did notice that a quite a large part of their range is made up of pale, french-type pinks (but they're all beautiful, so I'll let them have that one!) 


Summer is well and truly in the air at the moment with all the lovely weather we've been having (let's hope this keeps up all summer!) and so I HAD to get some of their pastel shades. I bought; lapiz of luxury - a lovely, blu-tac blue shade, lilacism - possibly the most popular lilac polish there has ever been, and the much coveted mint candy apple - I have ready so many blog posts, and watched so many youtube videos either talking about, or including this shade, the perfect mint green shade that EVERYBODY loves, I dare you to paint this on your nails and dislike it, it's impossible!


At £7.99 these babies aren't cheap, and fortunately they're on offer (3for2) in Superdrug until early June, so I'll be heading back to snap up a few more colours. There is a lot of hype surrounding the Essie brand and I can certainly understand why, with an excellent choice of shades, great colour payoff and a nice formula, what's not to like? These really are great quality polishes in every area and cheaper in comparison with brands like nails inc and OPI. I can whole-heartedly recommend them!

Polish shades l-r: mint candy apple, lapiz of luxury, lilacism.


This is what the polishes looked like on my nails after 1 coat! I'll admit they could do with going over to make the colour a little stronger, but I think they look really great for 1 coat, and they're acceptable to go out with if you were in a rush. Drying time was pretty quick and they didn't smudge at all like some do. The formula I liked because it was very fluid and quite watery, compared to the Barry M pastel colours, which I find can be a little thick and streaky. 


Overall I would say that these are worth the price because of their great quality, especially if you stick to buying colours you know you'll wear again and again. Essie is available in Boots and Superdrug stores and online.


Eleanor x