I love nail art, however, often find it to be very fiddly and time consuming to do at home or is to expensive to go to the salon every couple of weeks, so when Barry M bought out their 'crackle' nail varnish I was hooked, so when they bought out a new nail effect item this time to achieve 'croc nails' I just had to try it!

Barry M sell a very wide range of nail varnishes from matte to bright, metallic to glitter and so on and the 'normal' nail varnishes cost £2.95 and the 'nails effect' nail varnishes are priced a £1 higher at £3.95. So far Barry M have bought out three nails effect nail varnishes being; crackle, foil and croc. There are only limited colours avaliable in each of these, though as they are only to add design to a nail I don't think this really matters. Currently, there is only one colour to purchase the croc effect nail varnish in and that is black.

There are some instructions on the bottle of this nail varnish where it states to apply the nail varnish once your base colour/coat is touch dry and had not dryed completley, it then goes onto say that it will take 3 minutes for the design to appear. I am glad I read these instructions first as I was planning to apply it over the top of the nail varnish I already had on, much like I would have done with the crackle one-which is also very instant with the design.

One thing I liked about the nail varnish is that the consistency was much more liquidy than the crackle effect nail varnish. The consistency was very much like any other nail varnish, which I prefferd as it was easy and smooth to apply, whereas the crackle effect one can sometimes feel a little brittle to apply. It coated the whole nail easily and depending on the thickness/eveness that you applied the nail varnish different designs will appear. For example, it you apply a thin, slightly uneven coat the croc print will be much small and closer together and will not 'break up' as well, whereas if you apply a slightly heavier coat the croc print will be much larger and more noticable.

The croc print itself, I really liked! I would say it took 3 minutes or even longer on some nails, the thinner the coat of nail varnish that was used the quicked the design would appear. It seemed to happen by starting to 'crack' at the outer corners and work the design inwards into the middle of the nail. Though I would not say the design on the lid of the bottle is a necessarily good representation, the croc print itself looked really good. It looks like lots of little mis-shaped squares / scales across the nail and I love the fact that on every nail a different design appeared. I did wonder whether it would look to similar to the crackle effect nail varnish as they are a similar idea, however, they are definitley very different as this look is somewhat more smoother and manicured compared to the slightly 'jagged' crackle effect. I always finish it off with a top coat which makes the nails look really shiny and well manicured and allows the design to stand out even more!

Since wearing this nail varnish I have had lots of compliments on my nails and people asking me how I do it, little do they know how easy it it! Since the colour of the nail varnish is black I would reccomend only using it over lighter/bright colours rather than dark colours or metallics as then the design will not stand out as well!
Overall, it is definitley something that I would reccomend and will be buying again, I just hope Barry M continue to bring out more of these 'Nail Effect' items as they really are very good quality at a very good price!