Barry M Instant Nail Effects : Gold Foil 320

Good news, I found the battery charger for my camera at last! You no longer have to put up with the dreadful camera phone pictures I've been inflicting on you recently :D

In way of celebration, I decided to paint my nails with Barry M Instant Nail Effects, in Gold Foil 320.

This blingtastic gold foil paint is supposed to look something like a Minx nail wrap, and, well, it doesn't really. It's nowhere near as shiny as a wrap and instead of polished, mirror-like gold, it has an almost-but-not-quite matte, 'brushed metal' kind of finish that I guess you could describe as 'satin metallic'. If nail wraps are the shiny effect of cooking foil, then this polish is the less shiny reverse side. However, it's still utterly gorgeous!

This polish is VERY pigmented; I kid you not when I say it was opaque in one coat; though I actually used two because it made it look smoother and more wrap-like than it appeared at just one coat. As it's such a smooth foil effect, it does unfortunately show up every imperfection in your nails, though it isn't as obvious in real life as it is in these pictures (close up photography and macro can be so brutal!). Regardless, unless your nails are in really good shape, you're going to need a good base coat, preferably a ridge filling one. You're also going to need to apply this stuff with confident, even brush strokes, because like most metallic foils, it's prone to brush marks if you stop to faff around or go back over already wet areas - though again this is less obvious in real life and also improved by adding a second coat. The formula helps make this easier than it could have been, since it's not too runny and not too thick and applies nicely; the brush isn't a bad shape either. Drying time is pretty decent; one coat dries very quickly, two takes a little longer, but nothing arduous.

Close up, with flash. As you can see, when the light hits it, this polish gleams! It might not be full on polished metal Minx effect, but it's very definitely gold, and actually I love the semi-matte effect; it means that most of the time this polish is subtle, not too in your face, and just shines and catches the eye when you move your fingers. I wore this at work and wasn't even the least self conscious about having garish nails. Two days later and there's still no tip wear or chipping anywhere. I'm really impressed!

Oh, and for those of you that are into stamping nail art; I'm told that this polish is very good for stamping!

Essence Meet Me @Holografics.com : Lil@c

Today's manicure is Lil@c, from the limited edition Meet Me @Holografics.com collection released by Essence recently. The nail polish section of this collection includes five colours - Lil@c, Blue Ray, Gagalectric, Prism@tic White and Holoberry, and despite the name, not one of them is holographic in any way! They are, however, duochromes, and since I'm rather partial to a nice two-tone effect I decided I wanted some anyway.

Essence is sadly not available in the UK, but thanks to the efforts of a fellow polish addict in Switzerland, I now have my glittery tips on a number of Essence polishes - including Lil@c, shown here.

Lil@c comes with a long, thin, quite flexible brush which holds just the right amount of polish (with a scrape) and is soft enough to splay out a little on the nail, which makes a tidy cuticle line much easier to achieve. It's a gorgeous purple colour (all these pictures show it slightly more blue than in real life, as purples are hard to capture accurately) with a green duochrome sheen, is very pigmented - opaque in two coats, though the duochrome effect is more obvious with three - and dries reasonably fast to a fairly glossy shine (though it could be improved with topcoat).

(Excuse the ding in the index nail. I was in a hurry to catch the daylight and didn't wait for it to dry properly!)

Wear is very good, after two days I've yet to see much in the way of tip wear despite lots of typing. 

The green duochrome sheen is actually pretty muted compared to some other duochromes I've seen, even compared to the other duochromes in the same collection... with two coats and indoors light I couldn't see it at all, and it wasn't til I added another coat that I noticed it (and even then it's only really in certain light, when you hold your hand at a funny angle and squint a bit). The effect is much clearer in daylight.

Overall I really like this polish - one thing I noticed (but found it hard to capture on camera) was that despite the slightly disappointing duochrome effect, Lil@c did have a really nice metallic sheen to it that reminded me of some of the coloured Minx overlays (not as metallic as silver lightning - but then again, is anything??). It's a pity they didn't do a fuchsia pink version of Lil@c as I've been hunting for a really metallic fuchsia that wasn't too foil-y or glittery for ages now.