Friday, 26 April 2013

Barry M Croc Effect Nail Polish Review

   Now, as you can probably tell from glancing at my blog, I don't really pay much attention to make up. I don't post eyeshadow effect tutorials, in fact I rarely stray from subtle wingtips, if I bother at all. I don't wear lipstick at all - no matter what happens, my hair always gets stuck to it. I won't go near foundation. Just about the only thing I do use is nail polish, and even that is rare, given how my nails always flake afterwards.
   But, I came across this Croc Effect nail polish by Barry M a few days ago, and figured what the hell, why not try it? These things rarely work the way they should, but I try to keep positive, and I've always found  Barry M to excell at most things.

Seriously, how can people photograph their hands like this? It's so very much harder than it looks.
I'll reshoot this with longer nails, when they've grown.

   Just about everywhere I looked advertised the black nail polish (it's me, of course I'd buy the black one) with gold cracks, so I got my lovely foil effect gold polish (Barry M, again) and set to painting a base coat, since the Croc Effect is a top coat. As you can probably see, I'm really not very good at painting my nails. I'm not great at painting at all, really, but when things are delicate (ie having to keep my nails neat for the blog's sake), my hands start to shake and it just goes everywhere. My right hand is always a real mess.

   At first I was quite skeptical, but to be fair I'm not sure what I expected. Basically, it felt as though I had just painted over my nails twice, with nothing but gold around the edges to show for it. But, after looking it up on their website, I found that it takes about 5-10 minutes for anything to happen. Basically, once it's started to dry, it cracks. First it starts with subtle lines around the edges that crack and branch inwards, and the crocodile effect forms in the middle of the nail. I've seen a lot of pictures of people with really fine patterns, and others with huge patterns. I guess it depends on how you apply it or something, because not everyone seems to have the fine cracks around the edges.
   Either way, this stuff is amazing. It worked exactly as it was supposed to, it looks amazing, and, of course, the outcome can really change depending on the colour of your base coat.
   I found this over at Lackaffen, which shows how your base coat doesn't have to be neat at all to achieve and amazing effect!

Here is the video from the Barry M website. You can buy straight from the website, too.

1 comment:

I do read every single comment, and I will try to respond where I can. If you have an important question about my blog or my shop, however, then you might be better off contacting me directly by email. Thanks so much for reading my blog!