Finally! An almost perfect cream coloured polish.

I'm interrupting my brief hiatus (if you can interrupt an interruption) from blogging to show you this cream polish I've bought recently and love.  Regular readers may remember that I have been on a quest to find the perfect cream coloured polish for some time now and never quite managed it, but now I think I might finally have got close.

 

The polish is a Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine, one of the new releases, Coconut.

 

The formula wasn't brilliant, I found it a bit streaky and it needed 3 coats to get it looking perfect but all was forgiven one I saw the colour of the dried polish, could it finally be the holy grail cream polish I have been hunting for?!!

 

 

It's maybe more of an off white or ivory than a true cream but it's close to what I have been picturing in my head so whatever colour it is, I like it!

 

It's lovely on it's own; a really fresh, crisp neutral of a colour and it's also great as a base for nail art or stamping, you can see my very speedy stamping attempt over it below.

 

 

I don't think I'll ever give up my mission to hunt down the perfect cream shade of polish, which currently seems to exist only in my head, but in the meantime Coconut is a worthy contender for the top spot.  Well done Barry M, you've made a cream obsessed nail blogger very happy.

 

 

Bundle Monster H18 Stamping

I used a plate from Bundle Monster's Holiday Collection for this manicure, H18 which is a love / Valentine's sort of theme, I just used it because I liked the pretty pattern.

 

 

I use Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Blueberry, a dark blue colour, for the stamping over yesterday's Coloured Speckled manicure and I'm really pleased with how it turned out, the glittery base adds a little extra to the overall look I think.

 

I really like the Holiday Collection from Bundle Monster, despite being themed around certain holidays or events there are tonnes of designs which can be used whenever and aren't just tied into a holiday or event making it a useful set even if you aren't big on tying your manicures to life events.



Barry M - Gelly Hi Shine - Lychee

 

A nice neutral nude today, Barry M's Lychee from the Gelly Hi Shine range.

 

These pictures are all two coats with top coat.



Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Passion Fruit

This is the colour I meant to try when I have my Mango repeat the other day, another of the new-ish summer Gelly Hi Shine polishes from Barry M.

 

 

As with all the Gelly Hi Shines, the polish applies beautifully and covers well in two coats.

 

Passion Fruit is a weird colour, sometimes it looks like a reddish orange, sometimes it looks like a pink and sometimes it looks like a pinkish red.  Other times I think there's a look of a very dark coral in there too.  Regardless it's a great colour; bright, vivid and very summer appropriate.

 

It's a little different from your standard red or pink but without being too out there so I could see it being popular with people who generally have more conservative nail colour preferences but want to try something a little different from standard.

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine - Mango, again.

This post should really have been about Passion Fruit, since I have posted about Mango fairly recently, but apparently I can't keep track of what I have tried and what I haven't from my recently purchases polishes so today you get to see Mango, again.  Oops.

 

 

Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine - Key Lime

 

Another winner from the Gelly Hi Shine range here, this time a bright crisp green shade, Key Lime.  The polish applies beautifully and is totally opaque in just two coats.  It dries to a lovely glossy 'hi shine' finish too, and fairly quickly to boot.

 

In real life I would say the colour of this polish is slightly more subtle, the pictures make it look quite in your face but in reality, although bright and bold, it's a soft sort of dark pistachio or light grass green and it's very pretty.

Another 4th of July theme manicure.

I was quite pleased with last years 4th of July manicure so I decided to give it another go this year, however I wanted to try and create a flag design on each nail rather than spread it across my hand like I'd done previously, and so this version was born...

 

This years attempt was a little bit more complicated than the simple stamping I did last year. 

 

First off I started with a white base then I used sellotape to mark off a portion of my nails which I stamped with Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Blood Orange to create the stripes, after that had dried I applied the tape again, this time covering the stripes and leaving the white area clear to paint with Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Blue Grape, on top of that I stamped white stars.  Then I removed the tape and added a topcoat to smooth out the joins.  Both of the plates I used for the stars and stripes are from the latest Cheeky collection of plates.

 

Aside from the small issue I had on my pinkie (we'll gloss over the lines not matching up, shall we?) I think these turned out pretty well, it's definitely obvious what they are meant to be and I've had lots of compliments already which is always nice.

 

 

 

Do you have any 4th related nail plans?

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Guava

I couldn't resist trying Guava on it's own, it's such a beautiful, bright turquoise colour, perfect for summer.  Here's two coats of it...

It applies beautifully and is totally opaque in two coats.

I love how shiny it looks, the Gelly polishes really do manage to look juicy in their finish.

And I even managed to match my nails to my latest piece of crochet...

Even More Stamping with Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Nail Paint.

Having looked at my two previous posts about stamping with the Barry M Gelly Hi Shines; HERE and HERE, I seemed to have missed a trick, I should really have used the same stamp again to make the comparisons all match nicely. 

Sadly I didn't think of that so you're getting a different stamp instead.  A rather poorly executed stamp at that, for some reason my stamping skills weren't really up to scratch last night so the stamping here is rather messy but I think it shows off the colours pretty well so up go the pictures.

This stamping is done with the new Summer 2013 releases from the Barry M Gelly Hi Shine collection.  Key Lime - the lime green, Guava - the turquoise, Blue Grape - the blue, Mango - the orange and Passion Fruit - the pink leaning red.

As with the majority of the other Hi Shines these polishes stamp beautifully, bright vibrant colours which are easy to work with and apply nicely to the nail.

There are some great additions this time round, leaving plenty of opportunities for ombre looks when they're combined with the rest of the Hi Shine collection.

As stamping polishes go you can't go far wrong with these; they are easy to work with, reasonably priced and readily available.  Although some of the lighter shades from the range might not work too well over darker polishes they are perfect over a lighter or white base and the growing number in the collection mean that you'll never be stuck for colour choice when it comes to a stamping manicure, AND they are beautiful on their own just worn as regular polish; win / win!

Barry M - Gelly Hi-Shine - Mango

I've been so bust lately that I have been spending shamefully little time on my nails, I had originally wanted to use the new Barry M Gellys for stamping manicures but time has totally gotten away from me and instead I found myself reaching for one last night when I just wanted a quite fix. 

 

 

This is two coats of Mango, a lovely lush orange shade, to me Tangerine would have been a much better name for this colour. :) 

 

Like almost all the Gellys it applies beautifully and leaves a lovely glossy shine on your nails.  I still use top coat on mine but you could definitely skip it if you wanted to, and if, unlike me, you can be trusted not to chip your nails immediately without the aid of quick dry top coat

 

I do still really want to try stamping with these polishes but for now they are perfect for a quick fix solution to a manicure when I'm short of time.

Sunny Skies

A quick bit of nail art today, I used the Kiko Mirror Nail Lacquer I bought recently to stamp with and then filled in the centres of the suns.  I also used a white nail art pen to fill in the stamped clouds as I thought they looked a bit odd in gold.

 

 

The base colour is yesterday's Blue Grape from Barry M's latest set of Gelly polishes, it's a bit dark for this nail art really as it seems more of a night sky colour and so a bit at odds with the suns.

 

Overall I'm quite pleased with how this turned out though, I like the colour combination and it was pretty quick to do for partially  free hand nail art which I often can't be bothered with due to the time it takes.

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine - Blue Grape

I was in a bit of a rush last night so I decided to try out one of the new Gellys on it's own.  The previous releases from this range are great for just chucking on if you don't have a lot of time and thankfully Blue Grape was no different in that sense.

 

 

As with the other Gellys it does have a lovely squishy, high gloss finish to it, this time in a vivid royal, or is it cobalt, blue colour.

 

 

The colour is a little lighter, and brighter, in person.

 

New Barry M Gelly Hi Shines - Eventually!

I was hoping to be able to pick these up before I went away but no such luck, I had to wait until I got back but finally I have them and now I am putting myself on a semi-strict no buy for the foreseeable future while I try out all my new lovlies.  There are only so many new polishes a girl can handle (until the next must have comes out).

 

 

I have high hopes for how these little beauties will stamp so stand by for future posts on that.

 

Here's a quick dot swatch of the polishes, along with the new Limited Edition Summer Neons from Boots and Superdrug, more about them tomorrow.



Rainbow Stamping!

I am so pleased with how this turned out, it looks like a lot of effort but in reality it's a fairly simple technique to master which looks much more time consuming that it actually is.

Here's what I used, a whole load of Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine polishes and Cheeky plate CH12.

I used the base of Kiko 417 from yesterday and stamped the Gellys over the top.

I love how these turned out, they're so bright and cheerful.

From a distance they look a bit like nail wraps which I love.

I was really sad to take these off but needs must there were other things to be trying out. ;)

Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blueberry

After coming home from a weekend away I needed another quick manicure for work the following day so yet again I reached for a Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine polish, this time Blueberry.

These polishes really are brilliant for quick manicures when you don't have lots of time and just want something easy to apply and opaque in two coats.

 

I love the colour of Blueberry, it's such a bright, clean blue shade.

 

Again, please excuse my middle finger's nail, it hss not quite recovered from it's run in with my razor last week...