Barry M is one of my favourite cosmetic and beauty product brands, the items they bring out always tend to appeal to me - especially their nail varnishes as they are always so bright and colourful and come in such a wide range, from plain pastels, to glitter, to crackle and even magnetic?! When I saw this magnetic nail polish advertised I thought it looked amazing, however they don't always work as I found with the crackle nail polish so I was slightly sceptical as to whether this was actually worth my money or whether I should stick to what I know and go for a regular nail polish - however they were on offer at the time so I couldn't resist giving it a go, I came to the conclusion that if the magnet part didn't work I would just use the colours I'd chosen as regular nail varnish anyway...

~ Barry M cosmetics ~
Barry M is known as the most colourful name in cosmetics and the UK's number 1 fashion cosmetic company. With over 400 different colours and a wide range of products Barry M has become a household name in the field of fashion cosmetics. They offer the customer a low to mid-price brand of quality, affordable and extremely fashionable cosmetics.

Barry M Cosmetics was created in London, Great Britain in 1982 by Barry Mero. In the early 80's Barry had a number of retail outlets around London selling beauty and cosmetic products. The fashion was for dramatic, outrageous make-up. However he found that no one was producing the exciting and vivid colours that his customers required. So in June 1982 he decided to put together the Barry M Cosmetic range.

~ Price & Availability~
Barry M's Magnetic Nail polish is available to buy at Boots, Superdrug and online at Barrym.com. It comes in nine different colours, but they aren't all always available on the high street, so if you can't find a particular colour you want your best bet is to order it on the internet. The colours are moon dust (gold), Neptune sea (pale blue), venus sunset (a cross between gold and silver), super nova (silver), cosmic glow (green), Dark silver (almost black), Burgundy (red), dark blue and violet. There are also five different magnetic nail effects; stripes, diagonal stripes, shattered, triangles and waves.

~ Appearance ~
I own four of Barry M's nail polishes to date, violet, black, gold and silver and they all look very posh compared to my other nail polishes as they come in considerably bigger than average sized square shaped bottles with a large black lid which has the magnet on top with a little plastic curve/bridge to rest on your finger when applying the effect. The Barry M logo is printed on the front of the bottle and directions on how to use are written on the back, which are worth looking at before beginning to paint your nails with this product.

All of the polishes look very metallic and shiny, which I guess is how the magnetic part works as I can't imagine it working with pastel type colours - although it would be nice if it did. The colours themselves are very dark, which appeals to me as they need to match my darkish clothing items anyway, but they do stand out and have a slight glittery twinkle. Also the colours may be dark but you can tell which is which as they are quite distinctive and they all match each other so look very good on alternating nails - how considerate of
your Barry M!

~ How do you use it? ~
1.If you wish you apply a base coat of clear nail varnish to protect your nails from staining (particularly if you're using the black).
2.Apply a thin coat of the colour onto your dry nails and allow to dry completely.
3.Once dry, apply another slightly thicker coat and immediately place the magnet above the nail resting the curve/bridge on the lid onto your finger. Make sure the lid doesn't actually touch the nail.
4.Hover the lid over your nail for about 10 seconds (sometimes a little longer is needed) and hopefully the pattern will magically appear on your nail.

~ So, does it actually work? ~
The answer to that is sometimes. You might have noticed I put on step 4 that the pattern will hopefully appear because sometimes it doesn't. This isn't the kind of nail varnish you want to just slap on and hope for the best ten minutes before you go out because it most likely won't work first time. I find myself spending up to and over an hour perfecting each nails design, don't get me wrong sometimes one of the nails effects will work straight off and look fabulous, but other times I have to remove the polish and redo it numerous times which can be quite frustrating. However, I am prepared to do this because the eventual outcome is definitely one of the cleverest effects I've ever seen and I think is well worth the effort if you have the time and the patience. The patterns, once done properly do look very professional although they can go blurry and I often get comments from people asking me how I did it. The polish itself lasts no longer or shorter than any other Barry M nail varnish and as long at the base is still there, the pattern will be too as it doesn't fade.

~ Overall opinion? ~
Yes, this nail varnish can get extremely frustrating but I can justify this frustration for the more than pleasing outcome, the designs look fabulous and my particular favourite would be the stripes because it's so simple yet so effective. I'm sure I will continue to buy Barry M's magnetic nail polish as and if they bring out more colours into the collection and I would recommend them to anybody who is looking for a professional look that won't cost you the earth, although it may cost you a LOT of time!