Review of 'Barry M Aquarium Collection' in 'Pacific'

Hi everyone! So not that long ago Barry M brought out a Silk collection (which I wrote about here) and I was worried that their new Aquarium collection would be exactly the same but I had no reason to worry! There are 6 new polishes in the Aquarium collection, 4 duochrome effect polishes and 2 glitters. All of them have oceanic names and I picked up Pacific for £3.99 (although Superdrug were doing a 3 for 2 offer so I did get another two!)

Pacific is a bluey green colour like the ocean really and is kind of metallic so in different lights it appears slightly different in colour which I think is really cool! In the bottle is does seem very similar to East Village by NYC but a bit more blue. I love the scale design on the lid of the bottle making this collection very distinguishable.

I used NYC toughen up nail varnish which isn't actually blue when it goes on! I know it isn't a base coat exactly but my nails have been braking a lot recently which I'm putting down to my new job at Costa!

I then applied the first coat of colour and was surprised how thickly it went on! I was expecting it to be very similar to East Village but I did find it to be a little streaky as I was applying it. Due to the metallic nature of the polish it means that brush strokes are a lot more visible than normal. I did really like the colour and even with one coat it was pretty much the same as in the bottle.

For the second coat I applied it a little thicker than the first to eliminate any brush strokes because I think having brush strokes on your nails just make them look really cheap and badly done! I mean, you wouldn't want paint stripes down your walls would you!?

Finally, I applied a top coat and tidied them up a bit and that's the finished look!

Whilst I really like the formula and colour of the nail varnish it's definitely not the first or only ones out there. I do love the colour and I think it's my favourite of the collection but I kind of forgot I had the NYC one at home because they are so similar I now wish I'd bought a different colour! Do you think you'll give the collection a go and what is your favourite one? Thanks for reading!

Review of 'NYC Quick Dry Nail Polish' in 'East Village'

Hi everyone! It's been ages (over a month!) since I did a post about NYC nail varnish so I thought I would pick one out from when I went through the mad phase of buying every single one and try it out! So the bottle on it's own is £1.79 but I picked all of mine up on a 2 for £3 deal is Superdrug.

So, this is a sort of bluey green shimmery colour as at the moment I'm going through a blue/green stage instead of playing it safe with pinks and purples like I usually do. I'd probably say it was more green in colour than blue - sort of turquoise although the picture doesn't seem to support my opinion!

Firstly I applied the base coat I always use which was £2.99 from Barry M.

I applied the first coat of colour and I was so shocked! I've used nail varnishes from this brand loads before so I know you always tend to need more than one coat but this was ridiculous! It has so transparent it was almost like it wasn't even on! I do apply thin coats but even so it was just unbelievable! This was when I realised it was going to take a fair few more coats than usual before I got anywhere near the colour in the bottle!

As it was so thin it dried super quick which was a bonus so I applied the second coat a little more thickly and as you can see it is starting to look a little better, although it's still not great! It's sort of the colour transparency I would expect from one thin coat from any NYC nail varnish not two!

Third coat now! It does look a lot better but I think it's ridiculous that I had to apply 3 coats before it got to this stage!

As it still wasn't the colour I wanted I applied one more coat of colour! 4 coats now! You shouldn't have to be applying 4 coats of any nail varnish regardless of price to achieve the colour it was intended to be.

I didn't apply a top coat because I honestly couldn't be bothered waiting for yet another coat to dry and I figured that 4 coats is anyway more than I normally do with the top coat included so it should be strong enough not to chip! I also didn't apply a top coat because I wanted to experiment with some nail beads!

Although I did like the colour and absolutely love the brand as it's so cheap I wouldn't really recommend this particular colour due to the sheer amount of time I had to wait between each of the 4 coats!

If you've tried  this or any from the NYC collection I'd love to know what you thought of them so leave a comment! Thanks for reading!