Monday, December 15, 2008

Swatches: Barielle Shades

When I first saw these in the September issue of Nails Magazine, my heart skipped a beat. Green and purple!!!!!!!

I looked all over for these polishes and finally gave up- I was never going to find them. It was all a cruel joke. I put them out of my mind...

...Until people started talking about them again! It was so mean, waving those lovely green and purple polishes in my face, knowing that I can't get them.... BUT! Some kind soul emailed me to say that they're available at CVS of all places! I know! CVS, can you believe it?!

They're also available on Barielle.com, but they cost $8 there and $6 at CVS.

I didn't get the whole collection because I'm on a polish budget right now, but the other two didn't really excite me that much. One was a pearly white, and one was a slivered brown that reminded me of Misa Earthward. Very pretty but possibly easily duplicated.

Enough babble, on to the swatches!!


Date Night. The undisputed star of the show and quite possibly one of the most perfect greens in existence. Please excuse the tipwear, I was wearing this for three days before I took the picture. This is a rich, deep, true green. No blue hints. It's lush and extravagant. I haven't wanted to wear anything but this color since I got it. If you like greens, you NEED this.


Hidden Hideway. Another unbelievably spectacular color from Barielle. A vibrant purple that's just a bit blackened. It's one of those lit-from-within colors that I love so much. The best thing about this is that it always looks purple in the middle, but blackish around the edges. I hate purples that look black, and this is not one of those! It's like Zoya Yasmeen's older, naughtier sister.


Secret Encounter. I keep wanting to call this one Random Encounter, heh. Another perfect purple shade. This one is much brighter and more on the red side. The color is made more beautiful by the incredible smooth shimmer this polish has. It sparkles with microscopic multicolored particles in full sunlight. So beautiful.


Two Timing. A beautiful shimmering coppery fall leaves type color. It reminds me a little bit of OPI Music Hall Curtain Call. It's not as red as Music Hall Curtain Call, more ambery copper, but the gold shimmer really brightens it and makes it flashy. This just screams FALL to me. Love.

I can't tell you how impressed I am with this collection. All of the colors are amazingly perfect, not a single dud in the whole collection; even the ones I didn't get were beautiful. It was like they hacked into my brain and created a collection they knew would make me freak out. And I gotta tell you, I freaked out over these!

Formula wise, I have mixed feelings. They are very thick but not difficult to apply. The thickness causes them to be mostly opaque in one coat, but a second coat is still necessary. The formula is smooth and not runny, and I like that, but they also take quite a while to dry. I always use Seche Vite on my polishes, and usually use Qtica Half Time drops on top of that, so manicures do dry quickly for me, but each polish tends to dry at their own speed.

CND, for example, takes the longest to dry because it doesn't ever actually dry. China Glaze takes the second longest, remaining dentable for a day or more. OPI is usually the fastest, mostly dry in 10 minutes and totally dentproof within a half hour... And so on and so forth. These polishes dry slower than OPI but not as slow as China Glaze. I was able to dent this polish after two hours, but by the end of the night it was completely dry. For the record, it was one coat of basecoat, two coats of polish and one coat of topcoat.


That being said, I'm still completely in love with this collection. I might even have to go get the other two polishes. I haven't been this excited about a collection in quite some time. It's perfect. Perfect! Bravo, Barielle! Great job! I didn't even know Barielle made polish, so seeing these shocked the hell out of me and made me giddy with polish-joy at the same time.

Rock on, Barielle.

17 comments:

  1. That Two-Timing Color is gorgeous. If it's as coppery as it looks in your photo, and not red, I might have to search it out.

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  2. Pretty as usual, Miss Scrangie- tho on me, Two Timing is more sepia than red

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  3. YAY! Date Night is awesomely awesome:D I'm so glad I was able to swap for this beauty. I love it!
    Hidden Hideway looks soooo gorgeous too. I'm imperessed with Barielle also.

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  4. haha, I love that you said "random encounter" lol

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  5. Oooo, I ordered Two Timing, Date Night, and Misbehaving Mistress from the Barielle website a few weeks ago, but I completely missed Hidden Hideaway (it looks so blah on the website!) Now I might have to put in another order!

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  6. OMG!! I love them all!

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  7. I'm still dying to get Date Night. I couldn't even find it at my CVS.

    I cannot make it 24 hours without a chip. What base coat do you use? I'm using Orly Bonder right now, I've chipped within a day using CND, Opi and China Glaze polishes with Seche Vite on top. What's my problem? lol.

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  8. did you find these in a CVS in your area? there are no CVS here so i'll probably never get them which totally sucks. as always, your swatches are amazing.

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  9. Weird! My eyes didn't get stuck at the green polish for a change. It's an awesome green, but Hidden Hideaway and Two-Timing won my heart over. Once again I think I have to cry for not living in the States.

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  10. I just love Hidden Hideaway, it looks like the perfect purple! But why is they not avaible in Europe?? I think I have to go and cry a bit for not living in the States

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  11. I need Date Night. Can't get it in Britain. I hate nail polish. I hate what it does to me. I need therapy. :(

    Oh well. Guess I have to look at your awesome swatches for a bit longer :D Thanks for these, I love them all.

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  12. Just found Hidden Hideaway and Secret Encounter at my local CVS (went to one store that didn't have it, though). I cannot WAIT to try them!

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  13. This is so unfair. Showing all these lovely, lovely Barielle polishes... I want every single one of them and especially I want Date Night. And I can't get them. They're not on ebay, not anywhere where they ship internationally. So, this is like holding a steak infront of a starving person and then putting it back in the fridge... Aaaaaaaagh! I want Barielle! I need Barielle!

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  14. Date night...<3! Loving all of them, to be honest!

    Merry Christmas!

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  15. OMG !
    I love these shades esp.Date Night & Hidden Hideaway. Pls. pls. tell me where did you get them and if they can ship it to Japan ?
    I love your blog.weeeeeeeeee !!!!
    x

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  16. HoneyHoneyNY, my pic is what it looks like on me in real life, so you might love it! Definitely more copper than red. :)

    Diann_co, thanks! Sepia, that's exactly the word I need to describe it! I feel like it's ambery with a red tinge, but you're right, it's sepia! Thank you! :)

    Sanna, isn't it amazing?! I just saw your pics of it and it look amazing on you!!

    Katee, hehehehe :)

    Megs, their website swatches are terrible! I can't tell what color anything is on there. Fortunately the polishes are much more beautiful than they look online :)

    Adrasteiah, me too :)

    Anonymous, do you buff your nails? That causes polish to chip and peel because the nail to too slick. Also, are your hands dry and free of oil before you polish? Oil and moisture can also cause chipping. Lately all I use is Qtica Natural Nail Growth Stimulator and have no problems with chipping, but I've never had a problem with Bonder either :( You can email me and we'll figure something out :)

    Stephanie, I actually had to drive pretty far to get these. I was going somewhere else and the CVS just happened to be on the way and I stopped in on my way back from my original destination :)

    Chaosophia, they are all so pretty! And I'm so sorry they don't have them in Sweden :( :( :(

    Lina, I just checked this :
    http://www.barielle.com/international
    And they have some international distributors, but the website does not ship internationally :(

    Lina-Elvira, awwwe, there there. *hugs* It will be okay :) <3

    KimmyDarling, awesome! Congrats!! I hope you love them as much as I do :)

    Sminkan, ahhh I'm sorry! Cosmeticmall.com is also supposed to sell these and I know they sell on Amazon (they may ship internationally) and you can also find a distributor here: http://www.barielle.com/international
    Hopefully you can get them :)

    Badbomben, thank you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year :) <3

    Luckymirai, I found mine at CVS Pharmacy, but you can find an international distributor here:
    http://www.barielle.com/international
    And there's also eBay :)

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  17. Is the Date Night a pretty good dupe for China Glaze Emerald Sparkles? Or do you think Nubar Greener makes a better dupe

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