Grey and Black Nails by MeMeMe and BarryM

I used to be a big nail polish fan but these days I'm a bit lazy and don't usually get much further than occassional dabbling with one-coat nail polishes.  However I have been on a bit of a mission lately to find a grey nail polish as it seems to be quite a new colour to the nail varnish market and I think it looks both unexpected and sophisticated.

I did buy a grey shade a couple of weeks ago which was the Accessorize nail polish in Dove which I wrote about here, but then on my next visit to Superdrug I spotted another colour that I thought might be even nearer to my ideal grey which is shade 59 Refined by MeMeMe (£4.50).  It's lighter than Dove, being more of a dry-cement grey, and looks much more grey than silver.  While I was in Superdrug I also picked up the BayyM nail effects in 311 (Black) (£3.99) which I know loads of bloggers have already been raving about for months so I thought I'd give it a try.

 I'm actually quite a big fan of some of MeMeMe's other products already such as their eyeshadows and liquid highlighter but I hadn't tried their nail varnish before.  I think they've recently revamped their packaging and this nail varnish has a so-called maxi-brush that means you can almost paint your entire nail in one stroke - very convenient.  The coverage of this shade was excellent and while one coat wasn't quite enough, two coats dried quickly enough to a lovely gently glossy opaque finish as you can see below.  I think this colour looks great on short nails.

 At £4.50 for 12ml this isn't the cheapest nail varnish you can buy but it's also certainly not the most expensive (it acutally works out cheaper per ml than the Accessorize nail polish) and the coverage and speed of application were impressive.  If any of the other colours in the range ever catch my eye I'd definitely consider buying them.

I then applied the BarryM nail effects over the top of the grey.  A word of warning - the first time I did this I don't think I left my first colour to dry enough and when I applied the BarryM on top it did cause my base colour to shrink slightly and go a bit patchy.  However it was second time lucky for me and I got what I felt was a really nice effect the next time.

I think this is a really clever product for creating impressive looking results in next to no time.  You simply paint your nails whatever colour you like, wait for them to dry completely (I'd recommend giving them at least half an hour) then apply one coat of the BarryM nail effects on top, which then begins to contract and crack to create a two-toned shattered effect.  I think this grey-black colour combo looks a bit like animal print or an eggshell pattern.  I'm going to try this with an orange or yellow next time as I think that would look like leopard print.

I think the BarryM nail effects has proven so popular already that they've launched a range of different colours, so if the black isn't quite your cup of tea you may find another shade that's more to your fancy.  You can find out more information about nail effects on the BarryM website.