Barry M’s latest selection of Gellys is the best I’ve tried yet. With a smoother formula and more sophisticated colour palette than last year’s line up, this set of seven lights and brights have been fighting for attention on my nails recently. For only a few quid each, I think they’re a brilliant budget buy - you could easily spend 5 times that on a polish and be hard pushed to find better colour and quality.
The Lights
I’ve nicknamed coconut, almond, olive and elderberry the ‘Farrow & Ball’ of nail polish colours, in honour of their sophisticated tones (I quite fancy that blue for my front door).
- Coconut - a cool cream, much easier to wear and more forgiving than white. More skin flattering than many nude tones and best of all, opaque in two coats (unusual for such a pale shade).
- Almond - a pastel taupe nude with slight mauve undertone. This doesn’t really work with my skintone, though I love the actual colour.
- Olive - a pastel version of an olive and pistachio cross. Prettier on than it looks in the bottle, this would look great with deeper skin tones or a tan.
- Elderberry - a dusky denim blue, much softer than Blueberry from the original Gelly collection.
The Brights
If bright colours are more up your street, look this way… I tend to steer away from darks in Spring/Summer, but vary between pastels and brights, so offering the choice of both in this collection was a clever move.
- Pink Punch is a bright strawberry pink and was my first pick for a mani.
- Kiwi falls somewhere between jade green and emerald, leaning more towards the former. Zero resemblance to kiwi fruit, but hey - the name is cute.
- Damson is my pick of the brights, a proper cobalt blue, closer to the colour in my bottle pics above. It looks more turquoise-y on my nails above, but doesn’t in real life. I’ve been wearing this on my toes and it makes me smile every morning in the shower.
If you’re into nail art or like an accent nail, some of these brights work beautifully alongside the pastels. For example the cobalt blue Damson & cream Coconut; or bright Pink Punch and dusky Elderberry blue.
Barry M Summer Gellys cost £3.99 each and are available at Boots.
If I had to choose just two, I’d go for Damson and Coconut. Which are your faves?
