Barry M Aquarium Nail Collection

I absolutely love Barry M polishes, they always have amazing colours and collections. When I saw these two from the Aquarium Collection I fell instantly in love with them. One is a colour polish and one is a glitter polish and suit each other perfectly. The polish is in Arabian, an amazing 2 toned turquoise colour and the glitter polish in Mermaid, a clear polish with flecks of blue, gold and green.

You’ll need at least two coats of the Arabian so not to see any of the nail bed and I put a few coats of the Mermaid on to get a good amount of the glitter flecks onto the nail as I didn’t want it too sparse looking.

The colour probably goes better with a tan, I think I’m a bit pale but it still works. It didn’t take too long to dry but the Mermaid took a while as I put a lot of product on my nail.

I love these colours they’re probably more suited for the summer so I should only get another month or so out of it.

The collection is still available in boots and it comes in few more colours too. I love how they’re so cheap only €5.99 and the great thing about boots is that they’re currently in a 3 for 2 offer!

Thanks for reading.

Love Sarah xoxo

Collection Lasting Gel Color | Review

I bought these during my Boots Haul last week. They were on offer - 2 for €6.50 or €3.99 each, so obviously I had to buy the two. I love gel effect nails so I was excited to try these, I had tried the Models Own Hypergel polish and wasn’t impressed at all so the fact that these where much cheaper than the Models Own I my expectations weren’t too high but still optimistic at the same time.

Vixen Red

Raspberry

I love the brush, it’s wide and gets the full nail pretty much on one swipe a bit like the Rimmel 60 Seconds nail polish or the YSL polishes, I hate really thin brushes they never work the way I want them too.

Firstly as a beauty blogger I want to try everything at once and as I’ve had Shellac on for so long I couldn’t wait to get my nails painted and polished again so I put one colour on each hand.

On my left hand I tried Vixen Red, from the bottle it looks like a deep burgundy red but when applied it has more of a plum hew to it. With the application I applied two coats to get a full colour, one coat was too thin. With this hand I applied a top coat when I was finished and the drying time was very short, it almost instantly dried to touch but it needed a short few minutes before it was fully dry. I love these kinds of colours especially for the autumn.

After over a week’s wear the red had hardly chipped other than looking a bit dull around the tip of the nail.

No chips after a full week of wear

On my right hand I had the colour Raspberry, it’s like a hot pink but a little darker another one of my favourite colours but this one is more suited for the summer. On this hand I didn’t put any top coat on just to see if it made any difference having it with or without it. Again after a week there is literally just one obvious chip and a little dulling around the tip of the nails.

 

The application on the colour was much better than the Vixen Red, the colour is thick enough and only needed one coat but I put two on just for luck.

Only one obvious chip after a full week

I’m so impressed by these polishes, they have a high shine that has stayed for the week, no chipping with or without a top coat and they are a bargain at only €3.99. They look more like a normal polish on the nails rather than having gel on the nail but I’ll let that slide as the overall quality is really good.

Thanks for reading J

Love Sarah xoxo

DIY Shellac Removal in 5 Easy Steps

So about 6 weeks ago I went and got my nails done. It was my first time getting Shellac done as I usually get gel nails applied.

I’ve been trying to save super hard the last few weeks for Florida and I’m just a little bit lazy so I didn’t want to spend any more money getting them off or going back to the salon to get them off, so after a good few long weeks and a dozen chips on my nails I decided to do it myself and it’s a lot easier than I thought it would be!

Firstly you need 3 main things: Acetone, cotton pads/buds, and tin foil.

The acetone I bought in Hairspray and cost about €8-9, but if you don’t have one near you any pharmacy should sell removers just make sure that you get one with acetone in it. You need the acetone in the remover as this is the only thing to melt off the shellac.  The other items everyone should have about the house, I also used a small dish to put the acetone into, just so not to make a mess as the acetone can melt off varnish and stain some furniture, so if you’re like me and you don’t want your mother giving out that you’ve ruined her table then put a board or a cloth in the area you’ll be working on.

Step One: Preparation

I’m not the most organised person but when doing things like this I think you need to be. I cut the tinfoil into 10 squares, cut the cotton pads in half (if you have cotton buds you don’t need to do this) and I poured the acetone into the little bowl. Finally I laid the rest of the things on the table.

Step Two: Application

Now we get down to business, make sure everything is at hand as it will make everything that but easier for you. I dipped the cotton pad into the bowl of acetone and rinsed some excess off, I then wrapped it around the nail. I also taped it so it would flap back up. I then got my foil and wrapped it around the cotton pad (think burrito for this step). With a full sized cotton pad I wrapped it round the foil and squeezed it tight (I used the cotton pad as some acetone squeezes out).

Step Three: The Waiting Game

Once all the fingers have been covered you need to leave them for ten minutes to soak, squeezing the nail every now and again.

Step Four: Removal

After the ten minutes you’ll want to take of each foil one at a time, if you take them off altogether the soaked nail will dry very quickly. When removing, rub the nail with the foiled cotton pad like you would when taking polish off, this will remove any excess gel on the nails. If there is any leftover gel just scrape it off with your nail or an orange stick and it should come of very easily.

Step Five: Manicure

When all the gel is taken off each nail they will look very dry and ragged, you’ll need to buff and file each nail and then apply some cuticle oil and some clear polish and that’s it you should have lovely clean nails that look brand new.

 

Tips:

·         Doing one hand at a time is a bit easier than doing the two together

·         If you have more than 2 layers of Shellac on the nails it might take a bit longer than 10 minutes.

·         Having the foils bended over will make it a little easier when wrapping them up

·         This method can be used on any other 2-3 week manicure gels and on glitter polishes

Now that you know how to remove your gels there is no point in going to the salon and spending any more money then you have to and it’s not as hard you might think it is, as long as you have the right tools you’ll be flying.

Before

After

Thanks for reading!

Love Sarah xoxo