Barielle Summer Brights

Barielle has a new Summer Brights collection!

Lemondrops is a super bright yellow creme. This was 3 coats and it was still a bit patchy. I'm just not a yellow fan honestly! It also was super hard to get off of my cuticles! And my nails are still stained from this a week later...

Pink Flip-Flops is a pale pepto pink creme. This was 3 coats and the formula was fine.

Sweet Addiction is a teal creme with a hint of silver shimmer. It's quite hidden and I didn't really notice it in person. I do love these teal shades though! This was two coats.

Cosmic Kiss is an almost jellyish fuchsia creme. This was two coats. I had some sheet marks and tried to fix them lol.

Blue Capri is a super intense cobalt blue creme that reminds me of Nails Inc Baker Street! This was two coats.

Overall this collection had good formulas except the yellow, but I pretty much always have trouble with yellows. The color selections really weren't very exciting though. I'm usually not a creme fan! 

You can buy Barielle polishes for $8 on their site or $25 for this collection. You get %15 off for registering with your email, and they're pretty much always buy one get one 50% off! Ulta also sells them and you can use their coupons if you'd prefer to buy them in person. Don't forget to check out Barielle's Facebook page too!

These products were provided to me for my unbiased review.

Spring Has Sprung

It's the first day of Spring! The Spring Equinox! Well yesterday was lol. 

The earth is awakening, buds sprouting, sun shining! I'm excited about the nicer days ahead.

I did my nails like little candy eggs - Cadbury mini eggs or Whopper Robin's Eggs
(Candy pics from Candywarehouse.com)

I used Zoya Neely, Zoya Jacqueline, China Glaze Sweet Hook, Zoya Blu, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, and Sally Hansen White On. I tried using a toothbrush to splatter the nails, but I skittled them all first so it was getting all over my thumb nail and not so much on my other nails. So  I just dipped the toothbrush in the polish and dabbed it on here and there. Then I topped it with China Glaze Matte Magic.

I tried Barielle Matte-inee first since I just got it. It says "matte finish nail protection", "dries with a matte finish", and "dulls the high luster finish of color polish to provide a satin finish"...all in the same section lol. So is it supposed to be matte or satin? It's definitely more satin, as you can see. I realized after I put Matte Magic on top of this that the pics almost look like a wax finish. I'll have to try it again on a plain creme and see. It also says it has "strengtheners and conditioners" so I'm thinking you could wear this when you don't feel like having anything on your nails but want a little nail boost. This would be great for men who like to have nice nails but don't want shine or color.

Yay, Happy Spring/Spring Equinox/Ostara/weather getting warmer day!!

Some of these products were provided for my unbiased review

Barielle Sweet Treats

The Barielle Sweet Treats collection is a fun little compilation of cremes and one glass fleck shimmer.

I felt like doing a watermarble with all the colors. They don't all go together necessarily, but you can see how many pair nicely together. I'm not great at watermarbles so forgive the mess-ups :P. I'm always open to tips!
The pointer and middle are Green Apple Chew and Blue Cotton Candy. The other two are Banana Drop, Lilac Jelly Bean, and Orange Parfait.  

I tried out my latex method for watermarbling again. It isn't perfect - I think the water messes with the ability of the latex to pull off as easily sometimes, but it works quite nicely!

Banana Drop is a yellow creme that is bright and pale at the same time. How does that work? I don't know! Like a super bright pastel...a neon with a little more white in it? The name fits it because it reminds me of a Starburst or something. This was 3 coats

Blue Cotton Candy is a rich tealy blue with silver glassfleck shimmer in it. I love love love this finish!! This was two coats. This is actually a pretty good dupe for Cult Nails Let Me Fly.

This is (top to bottom) Lilac Jelly Bean, Green Apple Chew, Orange Parfait, and Banana Drop. They're all cremes so I just swatched them like this. Honestly this would be a pretty awesome skittle anyway. The formulas on all these were perfectly fine.
Lilac Jelly Bean is a pale lilac purple creme
Green Apple Chew is a neon super bright acid green creme
Orange Parfait is a rosey coral creme
Green Apple Chew and Banana Drop were three coats. The rest were two.

I'm in love with Green Apple Chew, Orange (not orange at all) Parfait, and Blue Cotton Candy! I also have a new photo setup. Can you tell a difference?

You can buy Barielle polishes for $8 on their site or $25 for this collection. You get %15 off for registering with your email, and they're pretty much always buy one get one 50% off! Ulta also sells them and you can use their coupons if you'd prefer to buy them in person. Don't forget to check out Barielle's Facebook page too!

These products were provided to me for my unbiased review.

Family Nail Diaries 1: A Lesson in Cleanup

I do nails with my family all the time - my sister, mum, MIL, even my husband! I thought it would be fun to start a feature for all of my family posts like this: Family Nail Diaries :D. I'll be posting new and old posts about my family and nails and the like!

Let's kick off with a recent one! This is me and my sister on Thanksgiving. I taught her how to do cleanup on her nails with polish remover and a brush. I made a fun little collage/comic with us cleaning up lol!

 Lol she's going to kill me for these pics, but I think they rock!

 I finally convinced her to try something other than subtle pink/nude/grey polish! This is two coats of Barielle Erica's Pencil Skirt with nail art in China Glaze I Herd That. She never wears glitter either, so this was a huge deal!

 She wore it for days, even over to her in-laws house. I'm so proud of her for branching out :D. She's much more into nail fashion lately and even keeps up with my blog! She told me she wanted me to bring an "oxblood" color when I came down for Thanksgiving, so I picked this one.




Here she is cleaning up with my brush. Now she wants one for Christmas! What have I started!?!?

It's great that my family enjoys nail stuff too! I love my sister's nails, don't you?!

Wintry Friend

  I joined a nail art contest that is going on for about a month at Nail Polish Canada. This week's theme is snow!!
Please vote for me here if you like my design!! :D

I love birds. They're my favorite animal. And cardinals look so beautiful against the stark white snow. I tried to portray a soft Winter day with light snow falling and a cardinal nestled in the snowy branches.

Here is my birdie up close.
 

I used three coats of Essie Barefoot in Blue for the sky. The cardinal is mostly China Glaze Adventure Red-y,with highlights of OPI Paint My Mojitoes Red, and some black. The beak is China Glaze Peachy Keen. The branches are China Glaze Call of the Wild, with some Barielle Stardust snow falling.

I can't wait to see a cardinal in the snow this Winter. I hope we GET snow!

I hope you all have happy holidays! I'm loving the holiday season!

Please vote for me here in the nail art contest if you like my design!! :D

Polish Us Pink: Heart Tree

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime, and even men can get this cancer. To the survivors, the people struggling with it today, and the people whose lives have been touched by it, this is for you. Read my first post for more about how cancer has effected my life.

 Another Monday mani for Breast Cancer Awareness! Yea I know it isn't Monday anymore...whatever...I got distracted :P. This is kind of a nail fail so forgive me, but the idea is cute so I still posted it. Feel free to laugh.

 I used Barielle Big Apple Red for the base, with one coat each of Barry M Pink Iridescent and Color Club Fame and Fortune. The accent nail is a base of Milani white with Barry M Dusky Mauve for the tree. The hearts are stamped in white, Orly Pixy Stix, Barielle Big Apple Red, and Revlon Electric Pink.

This image was my inspiration for this mani. I was searching for images about breast cancer awareness and this cute pink heart tree with ribbons in it came up. I didn't add the ribbons as I thought it would be too much detail, but this is what I was going for.

I swear I waited a good amount of time before the topcoat....but it never seems to matter. The hearts weren't really showing up over the red, so I decided to double stamp them over white. I've seen loads of people do it even with full nail designs. Line em' up...BAM! Fail...lol.

But ooh that glitter! I love Pink Iridescent and those big flakies from the Color Club are pretty cool.

 The flakies give off a dark color at some angles. This one isn't so bad, right? The little tree is at least ugly pretty :D. So this mani isn't predominantly pink, but it's the thought that counts!

Feel free to join in the fun this month as we post a mani in support of breast cancer every Monday in October. Don't forget to tag your posts on Twitter/Instagram with #PolishUsPink!

Barielle New York Style Collection

 Today I have the Barielle New York Style Collection for you! What a lovely selection!
Here's a collection pic with all the colors.

Fifth Avenue Boutique is a gorgeous bright berry pink creme. It's so pow and shiny.

This was a perfect glossy creme in two coats.


The secret beauty of the bunch...Greenwich Village at Dawn. This is a dusty mauve lavender pink with bright green hidden shimmer. The bottle really shows it in person, but even in bright sunlight like these photos, it only comes out a bit. You can definitely see it, but it has to be something you're looking for. Click on the pics to see them bigger and really check out that practically neon green shimmer. It really is a cool combo!

This was a great shimmery creme two coater.

 Central Park is a trendy greenish teal creme. I always love a good teal.

This was a great two coater and I didn't have any issues with staining or removal (you know blues can get nuts sometimes).

Big Apple Red is a bright cherry red glossy creme. It has just enough of a pink tinge in it to make you think of a perfect cherry you'd see on a commercial for cherries or something lol.

Here is her darker side that's a little more true red. It isn't the most unique red I've ever seen, but it's kind of hard to do that nowadays. The formula was great and this is two coat.



Soho at Night is a gorgeous rich plum creme with a bit of dust. I love it when polishes really match their name as I feel this one does.

I did have some issues with patchiness as you might be able to tell from these photos. This is two coats, but you might want to make it three. Really pretty pretty purple though.

You can buy Barielle polishes for $8 on their site or $25 for this collection. You get %15 off for registering with your email, and they're pretty much always buy one get one 50% off! Ulta also sells them and you can use their coupons if you'd prefer to buy them in person. Don't forget to check out Barielle's Facebook page too!

My favorite have to be Greenwich Village at Dawn, Fifth Avenue Boutique, and Soho at Night. Which do you like?!

These products were provided to me for my unbiased review.

Haul: Custom Polish Jewelry, Barielle, Butter London

I've been having good nail mail days lately!
Today I got my three pieces of custom nail polish jewelry from To Polish or Not and I freaking LOVE them!

This pic isn't even in sunlight. She does awesome custom work and will put pretty much anything you have in your head into a piece of polish jewelry...as you can see :D.

I also got the two new Fall/Winter collections from Barielle: Runway Fever and New York Style.

I just reviewed Runway Fever (on the left) and am working my way through the second collection. Fun!

And I grabbed two Butter London polishes from the recent sale at Ulta: Knackered and Black Knight. This makes four total for me. Did you get any?

Who doesn't love getting pretty much any package, especially nail mail!?

Barielle Runway Fever Collection

Barielle has two new collection out for Fall/Winter and this is Runway Fever! As far as I can tell these aren't sold in a set on their website yet, but you can still buy them separately with the ever popular buy one get one 50% off sale. 

One Shade of Gray is a medium/dark grey creme. I can see why they call this one shade of gray. If there could be such a thing as true gray, this would be it. 

 This is two coats. If you noticed, I had a wee bit of bubbling with with one on my second nail. BUT...


I got Barielle Ultra Speed Dry Manicure Extender recently and I have tried it more than once on top of bubbles with awesome results. Voila, no more bubbles! It's a great top coat that I have had absolutely zero issues with.

 Ahhh my absolute favorite from this collection...Rusted Vintage Boots - This is a lovely russet brown rusty orange spice with a tinge of red. Overall it's mostly orange. It's sunset meets pumpkin spice meets crunchy fall leaves meets awesomeness. Or you could just call it Rusted Vintage Boots...lol.

 This was a perfect two coater with a great formula.

 I tried a little nail art with this collection and did a quick half moon mani with Rusted Vintage Boots and Erica's Pencil Skirt. This picture is the most color accurate for Rusted Vintage Boots as it's a bit more orange than the previous photos in most lights.

 Alli's Lace Cover Up - Light fairy pale blue-toned pink creme with a slight touch of lavender. It's pretty pale for my skin tone, but surprisingly I don't think it looks bad on me! I'd love to see this on a nice tan person.

 These swatches are 3 coats not for opacity so much as it didn't self-level perfectly. It wasn't thick, just not as self-leveling as it could be.

I love finding fun things that match my polish. My mother got a cherry blossom flower pot for us as a wedding gift and they look so cute together :D. 


I tried more nail art again, this time a chevron french with Alli's Lace Cover Up and One Shade of Gray. Yeeeaa this might be a fail haha. I had never tried this and just broke some nails so had to nub them...This would look way better on longer nails. Definitely using tape next time, and it would have looked nicer with a topcoat to smooth things out.
I also started to get some bubbles with this one, as you can probably tell. I honestly thought it was my application when I had this issue with some previous polishes, hastily applying them for swatches and not waiting in between coats, so I haven't mentioned it before. I really waited in between coats this time and tried not to apply layers too thickly. I've only had this issue with some of their cremes, so I recommend following some bubble prevention tips when applying them. The topcoat probably would have fixed it. You know polishes and body chemistry though, who knows what's going to happen!

Jordana's Skinny Jeans -  A medium/dark sapphire blue with a foil metallic shimmer that makes it sparkle a much brighter blue with any light. Truly a gem!

You can see some of that silver shimmer here on the nail and in the bottle that makes me think of acid wash jeans, hence the name. This was a perfect one coater! I love polishes that only need one coat :).

 Erica's Pencil Skirt - A very dark maroon wine with a vampy brown side. Makes me think of Pinor Noir :). This polish is dark enough to look black at first glance and to the eyes of the average bystander (via a test with my husband lol). A glance from a polish connoisseur would see an extremely dark brown with a red tinge. You can really see the red jellyness in brighter light, and it does look more red on the nail vs the bottle. When I just looked at the bottle I thought it was a dark brown.

Here is the darker side. This one seems to be a jelly, but I'm not sure you could make a jelly sani with it considering how dark the color is. I had some issues with balding and patchiness, so this is three coats. It is a pain to remove from skin/cuticles, though most reds are sadly! Definitely a color for Fall and Winter. I think very dark colors like this are becoming more popular. The jelly finish makes it uber shiny as you can see in the pics (without a top coat).

You can buy Barielle polishes for $8 on their site, or $25 for this collection. You get %15 off for registering with your email, and they're pretty much always buy one get one 50% off! Ulta also sells them and you can use their coupons if you'd prefer to buy them in person. Don't forget to check out Barielle's Facebook page too!

These products were provided to me for my unbiased review.