Barry M Passionfruit & Confetti Nail Effects



 

(L-R 2 coats of passionfruit; 2 coats of marshmallow over passionfruit)

 

Barry M are probably my all-time favourite brand when it comes to nail polish. They have such a wide range of colours and always seem to be one of the first in line when it comes to bringing out cool 'nail effect' polishes.

 

Passionfruit is a new release from their 'Gelly' nail polish line, which if I'm honest, I wasn't a huge fan of. I found them a lot more gloopy than the regular Barry M polishes, and found they took an absolute age to dry. However, I really liked the colour of Passionfruit, so I put my doubts to one side and I'm really glad I did. It's a beautiful pinky-red colour, which is absolutely perfect for summer and will look amazing with a tan. This isn't gloopy in the slightest, it's really easy to work with, and you can even get away with only applying a single coat, although I tend to apply two just because I'm fussy! It dries to a really high-shine finish, and I found it lasted a good 3/4 days without chipping.

 

The Confetti Nail Effects line is also a new release, and I wasn't sure if I'd like the effect at first, but again this one has pleasantly surprised me. I think it gives a really cool effect to the nail, without being too 'in your face'. It dries amazingly fast, although you will need to apply a couple of layers of topcoat if you want to achieve a smooth finish over this. I have the shade 'Marshmallow' which is a pink bar 'confetti' suspended in a clear base. I think this is the most subtle one of the range - other colours include: Dolly Mixture - a blue, peach and yellow confetti, Liquorice - black and white confetti, Bubblegum - blue and white confetti, and Sour Apple - blue and yellow confetti.

 

These are both £3.99 and available from Boots and Superdrug. 



MAC Fix+



It feels like absolutely ages ago that I sat down and wrote a post on my blog, but honestly, that is because it WAS ages ago. I don't really have an excuse, I just didn't feel inspired to write, I felt I had nothing to write about, and so I decided it was better to just take a small break rather than churn out posts that I didn't really want to write. Anyway I finally WANT to write again so I thought I'd start with a review of a product that I have been using for a while now, and I know quite a lot of people really like it, but I just haven't been getting on with it!

 

 

 

"An aqua-spritz of vitamin and minerals, infused with a calm-the-skin blend of green tea, chamomile, cucumber, topped off with the fresh, natural, energizing scent of Sugi. Adds radiance, finishes makeup. Spray it on. Skin drinks it up!"

I originally bought this as a make up setting spray, however I found that it didn't actually help my make up to stay on any longer than it would without it. It does, however, work well at getting rid of the dreaded 'cake face'.

 

As someone with quite oily skin, I tend to apply a fair amount of powder and unless I'm extremely careful, it's all too easy to end up with a cakey, powdery, gross face. However, one spray of this and the powdery look has all but disappeared, which in my books, is amazing. Unfortunately for me, I found this made my skin look rather oily than simply giving it a natural dewy look.

 

As it makes my skin look oilier than it already is, I've had to give this product a miss recently. I tried to persevere with it, but with oily skin already, I don't want something that makes it look worse. To be fair, it is really good at removing the cakiness of make up, but that for me is where the positives end. I don't rate it as a setting spray, and I don't like the fact it makes my skin look really oily.

 

This is £13.50 and available from MAC, Debenhams and Selfridges.