Showing posts with label Barry M Cyan Blue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barry M Cyan Blue. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Crumpet's Choice - The 7 Barry M Nail Paints You Can't Live Without

Hi Goddesses



And welcome to an exciting new series on The Crumpet - Crumpet's Choice.   It basically gives me any and every excuse to walk you through my stash, my preferences, my polish loves and anything else that tickles my fancy.


We start with the awesomeness that is Barry and his M.  Originally, this post was going to draw from ALL his polishes, but as we have 5 new Gellies on the way, I thought I'd split it.  So today focuses on the cremes, the Nail Paints.



Barry M has many gorgeous colours, and many of his most popular shades - eg the Ice Creams - are not amongst my personal favourites.  What I have here though are the 7 I use the most, that I feel are the most unusual or to die for or unique, or that just provide a very specific balance to your collection.  If you're lucky enough to have 60 seconds to scoop up 7 Barry M polishes, these are the ones I'm suggesting you choose.



We start with Block Orange.  This is my most used Barry M.  It's just THE perfect orange, and it's also super glossy.  Worse, it started my orange obsession.  I never loved an orange until this polish, and I haven't found another orange since that's as pure or as perfect.




(YIKES!  super nubs!)

Next, Indigo.  This is just a stunning shade.  When I bought it, it was quite unique in the polish world, but lots of other brands have since attempted something similar - Miss Emo Shun All by Sation being the closest dupe.  This polish is just  soooooo dramatic and deep and intense. It's amazing, and again, I have no other purple that compares to it.




I think this next choice will surprise you - Lime Green.  We all know I am a hater of greens, and my skin particularly abhors warm greens, so how the hell does this make the cut?   Well, it's just so ugly that it's gorgeous.  It transfixes me ha ha.   I literally can't stop staring when I wear this one.   Admittedly, this colour is less unique in polish world, and it's also one of the thinnest Barry M polishes I've encountered - I usually need 3 coats for opacity - but I guess that also means it's one of the few Barry M's that will provide you with a jelly sammich.




(are those REALLY my nails???!!!  ugh!)

Shocking Pink.   To be fair, it's not that shocking, it could stand being dialled up a couple of notches, but this is a perfect pink.  For me, it just sits in the centre of the pink spectrum - not too blue, not too red; not too light, not too dark; not too white based, not too corally.   It's poised on the axis of perfection, and that's why I use it a lot.






And then we have 3 blues.  I always considered Barry M one of the best brands for blues - and blue probably appeared more times in his range than any other - but recently other brands have overtaken him here, namely KIKO.





Blue Moon however, is essential.  This is a super soft, super light baby blue with the teensiest bit of shimmer, and for a long time, it was unique in my stash.  Other brands are now catching up with it, but at a higher price.  This is probably my all time Number 2 Barry pick.





Next we have Blueberry Ice Cream, which is just lu-uh-ush.   This is probably the only ice cream shade I genuinely love, as (for me) the other colours can be a bit sickly.   This is just blue perfection.  It's also almost opaque in one coat.  I use this a lot as it's the perfect colour for the sky in nail art.  Just delicious.






And then we have Cyan Blue.  When I bought this, again, it was unique, and I think it may still be.  It's not quite turquoise, and it does lean darker than the bottle, but there are literally a million variations in this little niche of the blue spectrum.   Again, this is effortless application.  If you want a nice bright, summery blue, this is your polish.




And that's it, your 60 seconds is over!   Which was your favourite?   There are LOTS of Barry M swatches on this blog (just use the search box), and you can also click the logo in my sidebar to go directly to their website.  


You can also click on this post HERE to see pics of my Barry stash.  It's grown a bit since then, but it's got some pretty photos :)


Barry M have a really good price point, which is part of their appeal in the UK.  More importantly, they LAST.  They are more chip-resistant than most brands, and I'd say that was more valuable.  


In the US, you can pick them up at Ninja Polish.


Enjoy xx :)

Thursday, 24 January 2013

NEW31DC - Inspired By A Game - Trivial Pursuit

Hi Goddesses



Today's mani is quite a complex one for me, and it's also the one that persuaded me that I needed to invest in some acrylic paints, but more on that later.




Inspired By A Game immediately made me think of 2 things - Twister, and Connect 4.   To be honest, they both seemed quite basic dotticures, and then quite by accident I thought of Trivial Pursuit.




I hit on the idea of doing each nail a different coloured cheese (where's the green? not here!) and then realised I was going to need to do chevrons.  I've done chevrons before.  I'm not awesome at them, but I'm ok.




But here lay the problem with this mani.  Ideally, you would want to do the cheese chevron on top of the blue base.  Except there is no way you would get your cheeses to pop colourwise.  So instead, I had to paint my nail the cheese colours (thanks Barry M) and then chevron (KIKO 335) around them - which as you can see, got a little messy.




I did these with nail tape and I am really annoyed I didn't remember til 2 days later that I had chevron shaped nail stickers which would have done a better job.  Grrrrrr.   So yes, I'm annoyed with the messy lines.  And this is what tipped me over the acrylics line - apparently they would have been opaque over the blue, so soon my lovely goddesses, we will have acrylic nail art adventures!




Green ?  Well, to be honest, green would have matched better thematically (and Barry M Spring Green would have been perfect) but when I play Triv, green is always the one I struggle with, so I thought the mani would be more real without the green, cos I rarely get that cheese ha ha.



On top, I did then some stamping courtesy of the marvellous MJ plates from Meann at My Online Shop.  They are full of quirky images.  Just to be clear, we have - 

- thumb - blue = geography = globe
- index - pink = entertainment = film (Superman)
- middle - orange = sport = checkered flag
- ring - yellow - history = leaning Tower of Pisa
- pinkie - brown = arts & literature = scroll and university hat thing


See, a lot of thought went into this !!!  Lol, tomorrow we have Inspired By Your Childhood and ANOTHER mani I ended up doing twice.


TTFN xx :)


Friday, 28 September 2012

31 DC - Day 28 - Inspired By A Flag

Hi Goddesses



Ugh today has been a long day.  I am full of snot from a particularly heavy cold, have just been for a meal out and STILL have a blog post to do before I can call it an early night and listen to the Ryder Cup.




Inspired By A Flag was a tricky one for me, but only because I did soooooo many variations of the Union Jack this summer.  Because of that, I couldn't bear to do it again, but then I really struggled for something else to represent.  In the end I wondered what flags there were to represent causes rather than countries, and that's where today's mani came from.




Today we have the Peace Flag - rainbow gradient lushness and look, letters !!!!   As soon as I found it on Google, it seemed soooo appropriate given our troubled times, and I also loved how it harked back to the 60s, and a much simpler era.




The base of this mani is a gradient of 5 nail polishes.  I LOVE how these all mooshed together.   I felt it would be too much to do 7 polishes, so I eliminated a couple!  I ended up using Max Factor Red Passion, and Barry M in Yellow, Spring Green, Cyan Blue and Indigo.




For the gradient, I dribbled the polish in lines on my piece of plastic that I use, allowing them to overlap a little, and then used a smooth make-up sponge to apply.  I think I used  3 applications to get enough polish on the nail.   Now this next part is personal preference, but I deliberately didn't line my sponge up perfectly every time I reapplied the polish - I thought it added to the gradient to do it this way. Here is the gradient on its own - pretty damn gorgeous if I do say so myself.





And finally I used a thin brush and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls to add the lettering - I quite like that the lettering ended up being simple and childlike.





Enjoy!  xx :)

Monday, 14 May 2012

Which Sky Blue is the Blue For Yooooooou?

Hi Goddesses  



My hummana mummana Bettinas arrived recently, and one of the blues, whilst gorgeous, made me realise that I have accidentally acquired a few that are similar.  So, what better excuse to trot them all out, take a peek, and try and rationalise why all 5 are needed!




The 5 polishes are - 

* thumb - Butter London - Artful Dodger
* index - Bettina - Vintage
* middle - Barry M - Cyan Blue
* ring - a-England - Galahad
* pinkie - OPI - Ogre The Top Blue




At first glance, a few things are obvious to me - 
* how dusty Galahad looks compared to the others, yet when worn on its own it seems quite bright
* how Galahad and Artful Dodger look like father and son
* that Cyan Blue and Vintage are the next 2 most alike




Overview - 

* Artful Dodger - quite crellyish - not a creme, not a jelly.  This took 3 coats, and has a completely different feel and finish to the others.  It's a dusty blue, and the one it most resembles on Wikipedia is Cambridge Blue




* Vintage - fabulous, thick and creamy, this is a 1 coater, but I used 2 out of habit.  The sun shines out of this one.  Ridiculously happy, bright and perky.  





* Cyan Blue - sooooo intense.  This is also a 1 coater, tho again I used 2.   Extremely bright and brilliant, this one if probably the one I would keep if I were only allowed one.



* Galahad - gorgeous.  You can read my original post here.  As I said, it's dustier than the others, a little more antiquated.  It is very similar to Artful Dodger, just deeper.




* Ogre The Top Blue - bright, but slightly darker. This is a real Royal Blue, bright and vivid.




So, does a girl really neeeeeeeeed all 5 ?  Nooooo.  But does a Crumpet need all 5 - well, probably yes quite frankly.  They are all interesting in their different ways, and I will keep them but for different reasons.  The Barry is a brilliant all-rounder, but the BL is probably the one I am mostly likely to wear solo.




Stay tuned, cos I just layered this with Dollish Polish Putting On The Ritzzz! and it looks da bomb!




Thank you, and enjoy xx :)
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