Now it’s no secret that I love a bit of Barry M when it comes to nail polish. Not only do their polishes come in a massive selection of colours and finishes but when it comes to wear and tear, they’re pretty indestructible and I can often get through an entire working week chip free! Although I love experimenting with polish, I’ve tended to stay away from textured polishes as I’ve worried the ‘gritty’ texture might start to get on my nerves after a few hours wear. That said, when Opi released their ‘Bond Girls’ collection of textured polishes earlier in the year, the jewel like tones almost tempted me to take the plunge if they’d been a tad cheaper (I love Opi but I’m not prepared to pay £10+ for something I might not like!). Thank goodness then for Barry M who seem determined to push the creative boundaries at the lower end of the nail polish market and have brought out a collection of textured glitter polishes at a purse friendly £3.99 each (plus some of the colours are pretty good dupes for a few of the Opi ‘Bond Girls’ polishes…).

I picked up three of the five polishes in the ‘Royal Collection’ – ‘Gold Majesty’, ‘White Pearl’ and ‘Purple Countess’ – on my lunch break last week and I think I can now declare myself a textured polish convert!

‘Gold Majesty’ is a textured polish packed full of, shockingly, gold glitter. I love, love, love this polish and it was the perfect shade to dip my toe into the textured polish water with! The glitter pieces are very small and densely packed together so not only do you get an amazing sparkle but the overall texture is like fine sandpaper. It went on without too much trouble (it’s a bit thicker than a normal glitter polish) and I used two coats although I could probably have gotten away with one as it covered so well.

Second up is ‘White Pearl’. Although I loved this colour in the bottle, on the nail it didn’t feel very ‘me’. Containing a mixture of white and iridescent glitters, it’s a very pretty shade and possibly once the weather becomes more wintery I’ll want something a bit more ‘Snow Queen’ but at the moment I’m just not loving it. The glitter pieces in this one also seem to be bigger than the ones in ‘Gold Majesty’ which means that the application wasn’t as easy and the final texture was a bit rougher than I would have liked.

The final polish I picked up was ‘Purple Countess’ which is a shade I think proper beauty bloggers would describe as ‘complex’. Although primarily a purple based glitter, it also has hints of browns, pinks, oranges and golds which catch the light and shimmer beautifully. I also tried this one with a top coat which really brought the glitter to life but sadly it didn’t photograph well (or at least the photos of no topcoat and topcoat didn’t look as different as they did in real life to make them worth posting). This is a great shade for autumn and also subtle enough for everyday wear if you don’t want to be too OTT but still have a hint of sparkle. Due to the finer glitter, ‘Purple Countess’ was much easier to apply than ‘White Pearl’ and took two coats to become opaque.

Overall I’m really impressed with the polishes and whilst I’m still not convinced about textured polishes in non-glitter shades, I can’t wait to try some more textured glitters. I might just have to purchase some of those Opi shades now…