Manic.Monday: Barry M Limited X-mas Edition - Tinseltown

In my latest gianormous autumn haul from Boots there were of course a few nail polishes. I was doing so well, not having picked up a single nail polish until the magpie in me caught eye of something - a wonderfully glittery, glitzy, shimmery limited edition shade from Barry M, and then it was just downhill from there. Ah well, it happens to the best of us... The polish that was the ruin of me was the shade Tinseltown (£3.99) which contains a firework of colors; glorious Christmas red, bright vibrant blue, dazzling cerise and there are even some speckles of emerald green.

I think it's well known by now that I'm a big fan of Barry M nail polishes - the formula is great, the range of shades excellent, wear is super and all of this between £3.99 - 5.99! Tinseltown is a clear base with these colorful little particles fairly densely scattered through it, and the style reminds me a lot about the Nails Inc Feathers formula. The thing about polishes of this kind is that the look is random and every application will give a slightly different result. That's absolutely fine, but even though the spread of the glitter on the nail is uneven I still want the glitter over the entire nail, and not just on the side or the tip etc and for me this is the biggest challenge with this polish. The brush is of the same width as the standard polishes which means that it doesn't spread the glitter very well and you have to carefully move the glitters around to space them more evenly.

I've experimented with using Tinseltown on it's own and also as a top coat to different base shades - red, white and green, after all it is a Christmas edition nail polish. Since the polish is fairly rich with the particles you do get quite a lot on your nail in one coat as you can see in the photo below and since it dries very quickly you can easily apply as many coats as you wish and then add a top coat. To get a complete and super dense coverage of the glitter on your nail using no other shade, I think you would need at least 3 or 4 coats which might make it more sensitive to chipping. I usually find that when I wear more than 3 coats it only takes a small dent or pull, and all of the polish comes off in one big flake.

From left to right:

One coat

Two coats (and a half to adjust the spread of the glitter)

One coat on red base coat

One coat on white base coat

One coat on green base coat

I'm sad to say that I'm not very impressed with the results. The formula is good, it's easy-ish to apply but you really have to take care with the coverage, it dries quickly and the colors are beautiful, but I just don't like the look. It could be that I've combined it with the wrong base shades, but if it's a Christmas edition, it's not unreasonable to expect it to work with traditional Christmas colors too, or maybe that's just me... I'm also not sure about using this on it's own since it seems like there are a lot of black particles in the polish too - more than I expected, which darken the look quite a lot. Who would have thought that I would be disappointed with a Barry M nail polish, but I'll keep on trying with different base shades - maybe a pink or blue, until I find something that works, and if you have any great ideas, please let me know what color you would use as a base shade for this glitter coat.