Magnetic Manicure

I'm a big fan of nail polish and it's really exciting to see all of the new beauty tech out there at the moment meaning that we can try out the latest trends at home without the expensive salon prices.

Today I'm going to try out a magnetic manicure using Barry M's Instant Nail Effects in Magnetic Blue (£4.99). Each metallic colour comes with a different magnet design in the cap of the bottle, so the pattern is dependent on the colour that you get. Magnetic Blue comes with what looks like a Picasso Union Jack pattern

The bottle comes with instructions, so I thought I'd set the blog post out according to those steps:

1. Shake the bottle well to ensure magnetic particles are evenly distributed throughout nail paint - Done!


2. Apply a basecoat and then apply one coat of your magnetic nail paint and allow to dry
The first coat has a lovely metallic look to it on its own, so it's also good to know that you can get two looks out of this bottle, it comes out a bit paler than what the polish looks like in the bottle, but you have to brush it quickly as the metallic particle can make the polish appear a bit streaky if not applied evenly.

3. Apply second coat and IMMEDIATELY hover the magnet over the nail for 5 to 10 seconds and watch the effect appear
The lid has a ridge on it so you can rest it on your finger so it doesn't touch the nail and can hover over. Pretty handy, but I discovered that on the smaller nails you need to move the ridge further down your finger to ensure that the pattern appears in the centre of the nail.


So I was very impressed with the effect of the magnetic print, the pattern magically appeared and looked very cool.

4. Once dry apply topcoat

Sadly the top coat blurred the magnetic effect, which is a real shame! The shape of the magnetic pattern is still visible, but the wow effect has been lost, as you can see they still look cool, but not as good as they did before the top coat.

However this may be because of my topcoat as it is a super strength one, maybe just using a clear varnish would be fine, but it wouldn't provide the resilience of a top coat.

In order to get the most out of the magnetic effect nails, I wouldn't recommend using a top coat and just plan to have them for only one night/day, (rather than doing a top coat to make them last a long time).....in the word of Kurt Cobain "It's better to burn out, than fade away" - ok, I NEVER thought I'd manage to get Kurt Cobain into a beauty blog!!!!

The cool thing about the different patterns on the magnets is that you can collect the whole range to mix and match colours and effects.

Colour-blending: step-by-step tutorial - loving the lilac!

In this blog I'm going to demonstrate colour blending, creating a very bold look, and then blending it down with a white. This look is based on MUA's eye colours, they have amazing pigment and stay on all day and are only £1 each (I shit you not). What I love about MUA's shades is that they actually deliver the colour they are in the pot in the first stroke.

Purple is one of my favourite colours, for blue eyes it's such a versatile colour, it brightens the whites of your eyes and oddly brings out a green to your iris - however this may just be me, I have grey/blue eyes which seem to change colour with the weather!

I've used a thin flat brush to apply the purple base coat, MUA's Pearl Eyeshadow in shade no.9 has a fab shimmer to it, so you don't want a looser brush (or you may find you have a shimmery nose and cheeks too!) You can see from the photo that the purple is very bold, further on I will show how to bring this shade down.

Using an angle contour brush dab it into the black, I used MUA's Matte Eyeshadow in shade 20 (£1) as the black need to be a matt shade rather than a pearl for creating a smoky look. Brush the black from the outside corner of your eye running along the socket, and then along the outer end of the lash line (creating a V-shape) from the outer corner of your eye. By this point you may be worrying that you are starting to look a bit drag queen with the bold colours going on on your lids, but fear not this will be addressed.

Revert back to the flat brush and dip it in the purple again, smooth this across your lids to blend the dark corners into the purple.

Then with the angle contour brush draw a thin line with the purple along your lower lashes. I like to reuse the brush I used for the black, as it adds a bit of definition, but if you prefer not to mix colours (and have an endless supply of brushes) then use a separate brush if it suits you.

So now comes the white stuff - I used a softer brush to sweep the white shade from MUA's Immaculate Collection (£8) over the lids, and it instantly brings the colour down to a beautiful lilac shimmer.

To frame the eyes I drew a line across the top lashes with Max Factor's Kohl Eye Liner (£4.99), and built it up gradually with a slight flick at the corner, followed by lashes of mascara, I used Maybelline's Volum' Express® The Falsies Mascara (£7.99), and as you can see from the pics I am a firm believer that you can never have a mascara on!

Hope you liked the blog post, I enjoy doing ones like this, so do let me know if you want to see more or any things you'd like me to cover.

Home Gel manicure? Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Polish

In the pursuit of a nail polish to rival a gel manicure I came across the Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine (£3.99) nail colours, which look good enough to eat! They come in 13 fruity shades and I have the scrummy looking 'Blueberry' and 'Satsuma', the latter is a vibrant orange, almost neon, but the blueberry is more of a cute pastel blue.

I did get a bit excited about the 'gel' element of the product, thinking it potentially had magical non-UV setting properties, but Barry M's Hi-Shine Gel effect Nail Paint just provides an extra glossy finish which has the look of a gel manicure.

Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in 'Blueberry'

I have to admit, on the first application, I used a friend's basecoat of a brand I'd never heard of before and by the next morning they began to peel off, but in complete chunks almost like stickers.  The peeling was incredibly frustrating, as I was running late anyway, and had to remove (luckily with the peeling, they came off in seconds!) I think however this may have been the dodgy basecoat, as on second application later that evening they lasted a good 6 days.

Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in 'Satsuma'

The collection of colours are gorgeous, and they have a great shine to them which really stays, so I couldn't resist doing an arty wet gel shot on the Satsuma polish (below).


My only comment would be that as the consistency is similar to a gel, areas that are thinly spread tend to show as slightly darker patches which are hard to hide with a second coat. So unlike usual polish application (where I would do a very thin bottom coat as a base for the next coat to latch on to, followed by a thicker second coat), with the Gelly Hi-Shine I found that each coat needs to be a full covering.  This takes a little longer to dry between coats, but worth it for the overall effect.

Now to collect the rest of the set.....