THE MINT GREEN LOVE

I think the first time I ever fell in love with a nail polish was when GOSH Miss Minty* dropped through my letter box back in the days when I had my nail blog. I wore it almost every time I painted my nails, and due to that I needed a replacement as this one was getting a little gloopy.

The one I love the most, and is a new love is the Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Sugar Apple, one from their latest pastel collection for Spring. It's the perfect mint, not too blue, not too green, and the glossy finish wins it for me. Definitely one to add to your shopping list.

One which I forgot about until having a hunt through my (overflowing) nail polish drawer was the Rimmel Salon Pro Lycra in Peppermint. This one is a little darker than the rest, but nothing to stop it fitting in the mint category. Also, the brush on this one is great, just a swipe over each nail is all you need, and only a couple of coats.

Last but not least is Ciaté Pepperminty, which is slightly more green than the rest, but nothing dramatic. I quite like the finish of this one too, as it doesn't seem to chip. My one peeve with this one is that it's pretty sheer and you have to build up the coats to get that perfect mint colour.

I think it is very 'blogger' of me to do a post entirely dedicated to mint green paints, and perhaps this has made me realise that I don't really need any more...

PASTEL PAINTS FROM BARRY M

If there was one thing I had to say about Spring beauty, I would probably express my love for the pretty pastel nail polishes, but when routing through my collection, I noticed that I was lacking in a powder blue colour, and so I was straight to the Barry M counter after hearing about their new pastels in the Gelly Hi-Shine collection.

In Boots there was a buy one get one half price offer on, and I picked Huckleberry and Sugar Apple from the collection. There is also Rose Hip in the collection which is a pale pink, but they didn't have any left of those.

Huckleberry is literally my perfect powder blue shade, and is just what I was looking for. Something which was literally a slightly darker than off-white colour (you can barely see the swatch on the nail wheel), and this is that. As always with the Gelly Hi Shine Range, the formulation is incredible, thick and glossy which makes for the perfect speedy manicure.

Sugar Apple is a mint green, which a lot of people say is a good substitute for Essie Mint Candy Apple. This one looks like it'll be replacing my (rather stodgy, well loved) GOSH Miss Minty now, which I am very happy about as that one needed a replacement anyway.

I can tell that the two of these polishes will be ruling my collection in the upcoming months, so expect them to feature a few more times here...