Zoya Julieanne

Until very recently I lived under the belief that Zoya polishes were not sold where I live. Which is a pity, since I actually like to shop for nail polish in person, to stand in front of a display and be blown away by choice and be indecisive about which color to choose and then buying as many as possible anyway. Yes, there are a lot of swatches online and etailers, but for me it is not quite the same. Sometimes even the most boring-looking polishes will grab my attention when I see them in person.
So it turns out that there is a shop that carries Zoya, Jessica and Essie, the brands that I would like to try. Unfortunately, this is where the good news for me end. The shop sells Zoya for about 9$, which seems reasonable, until you get to the catch - this price is only for "professionals registered with the shop". And all other mere mortals pay twice as much. Paying 18$ for a brand I've never tried seems too much. Plus this is what I pay for two OPIs.
One Zoya or two OPI?!?! Decisions, decisions...

I did get Julieanne, but it felt like I was being mugged in broad daylight. The color is beautiful, though. It's a very dark, almost black, purple with abundance of purple shimmer. In the bottle you can see the duochrome shimmer, but it is not visible on the nails. It gets nice and even in two coats. I struggled a bit with the brush, but i suspect that's just because I'm not used to it.
All in all I liked Julieanne, and I have about ten more Zoya polishes on my wishlist, but at such prices I don't see it happening.

OPI Ink Suede

I actually wanted to get Russian Navy Suede, but for some reason got this one instead. Oh well, I'll just have an excuse to get the other one later :)
This is my first OPI suede polish. It is probably the most difficult polish I've tried to put on. This is attempt number two, since the first one was unsatisfactory. The problem I had with putting it on was that one coat is not enough, while The second wouldn't go on smoothly. I figured it was because of the base coat - no matter how much i let it dry, the second color coat just smudges everything off. Agrr!!! So I tried it without the base, and it still didn't look all that great. So after a lot of trial and error I did manage to have 2 layers of polish and a base coat. Success!


I also really like how it looks with a top coat, perhaps even better than in the suede version. This way it is packed with gorgeous shimmer!!!

OPI Black Cherry Chutney

I picked up this polish on my recent rampage of my favorite shop together with a few other things. I was actually hesitating whether to get this one or not, but I'm really glad I did. The polish is a dark cherry red packed with red\pink shimmer.
It's a really sexy, vampy color. I just love how it looks ordinary and dark and then the light hits it and *bam* lots of shimmer and color.

On another note, I'm glad polish is not that popular here, I mean my shop still has the India, Switzerland, Burlesque, Shrek, Hong Kong, Summer Flutter and Pink collections.

Barry M Instant Nail Effects

This is the last polish that I got from Barry M. It's a black crackle polish that dries super fast and is matte. Well, when all the crackle polishes started appearing, I wasn't convinced that it was for me. I was already sure that I wasn't going to get Black Shatter (it's quite expensive and I wasn't sure I would like it or use it), so trying this was a less costly alternative.
I mean sometimes these bold looks (and some colors) make me look like I'm 13 or something. But when I started layering Barry M on top of different polishes and finishes, I actually was pleasantly surprised. It's fun to watch the polish dry and crackle, since it's so fast, plus it looks really different when you put thick and thin layers. Overall, I do like the effect, but the best thing about it is that it is matte, because it balances out the shine of the polish. Whenever I had a shiny top coat on it was just too much for my liking. On white the coat is thicker so you get fewer crackles, but they are more noticeable. On blue the coats on the sides were thinner and produce more crackles that are thinner.

With a top coat on.


There was one crackle look that I particularly liked, but didn't take a picture - light polish with frosty shimmer with matte crackle on top. I will do it again soon and post the photo.

Barry M Indigo

WOW!!! Isn't it just an amazing color! Indigo is a deep, true blue with a creme finish. It took only two coats to achieve opacity. To my mind it looks more like cobalt blue than indigo, but that's just me. I like Barry M formula and most of their polishes are just pretty to look at.

Barry M Mint Green

This is a nice spring color, a really bright green that sometimes looks quite calm\pastel. Out of all the polishes I got this one was the most streaky, so it needed three coasts to make it look even. I actually like this color because it's not too bright and not too pale at the same time. It's just right for my taste.

Barry M Pure Turquoise

I love this! I have been dreaming of summer for weeks now (it's really cold and gloomy here), and when i put this on, it just screamed "summer in a bottle" to me. The color looked perfect in three coats, and associates with everything nice and warm and sunny. I am a little surprised, that it looks really quite different in the shade and in direct sunlight - it goes form really sky blue to having a slight green tinge.