Swatch: Ciaté for Marie Claire Magazine

Hi ladies! I have a swatch post for you today featuring 3 Ciaté Paint Pots which are currently free with Marie Claire magazine throughout the month of June! When I heard about the offer, I couldn't wait to get down to my local Supermarket to collect all 3 Paint Pots. Usually priced at £9 each, you save an amazing £5.30 with each Marie Claire magazine, priced at £3.70, you purchase (1 Paint Pot per issue). Unfortunately, this post only really applies to my UK readers, as the offer is only with the UK Marie Claire, sorry International ladies! But if you do have any UK polish connections and like what you see, then let them know they may be able to help you out!
As far as I'm aware, the shades have been specifically created solely for the magazine and cannot be purchased through the Ciaté website.

See more swatches after the jump!

Swatch: BarryM - Denim & Comparison

Hi ladies, so I was going to wait to show you this after I had posted a Nail Mail post, but I'm just too excited and I couldn't wait. BarryM have recently released a new selection of colours, as well as 4 new magnetic polishes! I originally thought that they had only brought out 3 new Nail Paint shades (Silvery Lilac, Teal & (there's another one but I don't know the name!), but when I went into my Superdrug today, I saw an extra two that I have never seen before!

Black Multi Glitter & Denim

As you can see from the title, I am going to be showing you Denim today. Now Denim is an exact dupe for Ciaté - Regatta, which you will see later in the post! Denim is a denim blue base with blue and silver shimmer! Like Ciaté it dries to an almost Satin/Suede finish. I, like everyone, LOVE BarryM's formula. Almost every polish I have tried from BarryM is opaque in 1 to 2 coats, which is amazing in my opinion, especially since they are so inexpensive. Below is 2 coats of Denim with a thin layer of Top Coat.

Label Shot

Indoors, No Flash.

As you can see, it's absolutely stunning. One of the main reasons behind me purchasing this shade was to do a swatch comparison with Ciaté - Regatta. The swatches below are two coats of both polishes without a Top Coat, can you tell which one is which? I sure can't.

Regatta & Denim

Side comparison

Indoors, No flash.

I'm sure you're all dying to know which is which...

Pointer - Regatta

Middle - Denim

Ring - Regatta

Pinkie - Denim

As you can see, they are exact dupes for one another! There is absolutely no difference between both of these polishes except for the price! BarryM polishes retail for £2.99 each for 10ml with the exception of their Nail Effects (£3.99) and their Magnetics (£4.99) and are available from their website, Boots and Superdrug as well as various other online retailers. However, Ciaté polishes retail for £9 each for 13.5ml which are available to purchase on their website, that's £6 more than BarryM polishes for 3.5ml worth of product. If you've been lusting after Regatta for a while now, but don't want to pay out £9 for it; here's your cheaper alternative! I wouldn't even say there's a difference in formula either, the biggest issue between these would probably be their longevity (I will test them both over the next couple of days and get back to you).

Wow, this was a long post! Kudos if you're still here with me! What are your thoughts on the new BarryM Nail Paint range? Will you be picking up any of the new colours?

52 Week Challenge: 'Make It Sparkle' Mani!

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope you all had a good night celebrating in the New Year. My Boyfriend, his friends and I went down to our local city for a night out on the town, which was eventful to say the least! Especially having to treck up an almost vertical hill to get to where we were being picked up from!

I thought I would show you a quick look at my NYE nails I did before leaving. I wanted to do something amazing, but as I didn't have time to do that, I thought I would just do something simple yet effective. For the base I used 2 coats of Ciate - Superficial with China Glaze - Atlantis over the top. I then used a small nail art brush and BarryM - Silver Foil to write the numbers. I was pretty impressed with how the '20' turned out as I did it using my left hand (non-dominant).

What did you do for NYE? And did you do any special mani's for the occasion? Let me know!

EDIT; If you've read the below post, you'll know I'm now partaking in the Year Challenge. So instead of redoing a glitter mani, I thought I would recycle this mani, as it is now no longer on my nails!

Make sure to check out the other challengers posts too!

Nicel
Jenna
Charlotte
Kevan
Lissa
Liz
Cindy

Friday Nail Mail (Pic Heavy)

I've always wanted to try Ciaté Paint Pots ever since I received my first polish free with Marie Claire earlier this year. However, I was always put off by the price (£9 each for a 13.5ml bottle or £11 for Nail Treatments) I couldn't bring myself to spend £9/£11 for one bottle of polish. So when I was looking through my e-mails, I noticed that I had one from Ciaté, it was an offer. Any 6 polishes/nail treatments for £36 and presented in a Luxe Gift Box. I couldn't really pass this offer up, it was an opportunity to sample more of Ciatés polishes without having to pay a mammoth price to do so.
I was originally going to go half colour and half treatments, but as you can see, I went 100% colour. How cute are the bottles btw?! It's one of the main reasons why I was lusting over getting more in the first place and the cute box they came in is an added bonus!

Please excuse the swatches. I tried to get them in the minimal daylight we had left, but some needed a flash. I also have a red bedroom, so that's the reason for the orange tint!

Nail Trends: Autumn 2011 - Buff Pink & My Fair Lady

Today's Autumn Nail Trend is Buff Pink by Models Own and My Fair lady by Ciaté. Both of these are very sheer, nude colours, which again I think are perfect for Autumn. They're colours which you can wear without looking like you're wearing polish at all.
My fair lady is a creamy nude shade with a very subtle hint of pink that helps it to look natural and not washed out like some nude polishes have the tendency to do. I found the consistency to be really runny and the drying time isn't fast at all. I managed to smudge after almost 10 minutes drying time.

• Application: 5/10
• Pigmentation: 5/10
• Coats: 3/4

Buff Pink is a very sheer nude baby pink. I bought this with the hopes it would apply the colour in the bottle, however this wasn't the case. It's extremely sheer, I needed at least 5/6 coats to come close to the colour in the bottle. As you can see from the swatch, I used 3 coats and it still looks like nothing is there. I was extremely disappointed with this colour, due to the sheerness of it. However, I do think this is more for french manicures than for a solid nail colour, so that may have been my mistake.

• Application: 6/10
• Pigmentation: 2/10
• Coats: 5/6

I do have a shortage of Nude shades, so if you have any you'd highly recommend, leave me a comment below with the brand & Shade name!