Barielle "A Bouquet for Ava"

Suddenly, out of the blue....Blue! Literally! I love a wide variety of colors, and I never had had a favorite color except possibly purple. Too many gorgeous colors to choose from to have a favorite! If anything, I love color combinations, with my favorites being purple and green or purple and yellow.

So, I guess maybe a month or two ago I started lemming for some serious gorgeous medium blue color for the nails. Sure, cobalt, such as in Essie Mesmerize and my cobalt handbag, was an awesome addition to my wardrobe last summer. I think Essie Aruba really captures this ideal blueness, although it's a bit dark..

For 2010, turquoise is supposed to be THE color, and I'm all for that. But there is so much more to life than turquoise and cobalt. Enter Barielle's "A Bouquet for Ava." It's a dark turquoise. Perhaps a lagoon blue? Well, I've read about lagoon blue and am still not exactly sure what that is, so let's stop blabbing and get to the matter at hand. The polish!! GOR-geous!

Let's start indoors as we do a lot of the time:

Come into the light! The afternoon sunlight, that is:

Outdoors still but in the shade:

This dark turquoise is a creme with very nice application. It reminds me of a slate blue, such as Barielle's "Slate of Affairs" from the fall 2009 Barielle collection, only with a dose of green to make a spring/summer color. Not enough green to be a teal, hence my tagging it a dark turquoise.

Barielle calls it "deep cool Caribbean blue." Who am I to challenge the creators of the color?? Caribbean blue it is! Whatever one calls it, I love this beautiful color. Well-done, Barielle! Well-done! 

Barielle Discount Through Feb. 14

Ooh, I love this hot yellow and hot pink color conbo!


No, this isn't an advertisement. I'm not getting anything from Barielle. I just wanted to post a reminder that if you spend $60 at Barielle.com, you get 15% off and free shipping. Not bad!

Also, the six new shades for spring are posted on the site. I went to take advantange of the sale last week because I desperately need more polish remover (I HEART Barielle's acetone-free remover pads...the BEST, Jerry, the BEST!) but I didn't really need $60 worth, and they did not have the new spring shades up. I happened to check today, and they are indeed up!!

Yay, I got four Love Your Nails remover pads and all 6 shades. Hang on nails, help is on the way!!

Nail Noob -- Barielle Haul, Y'all!!

Okay, I've done my Thursday update, now let's get to the HAUL!!! I received my first ever Barielle nail colors!! Yay! I placed my order only early this week, and they arrived Thursday. I had ordered a total of 9 nail polishes, 6 of which were from the new fall 2009 All Laquered Up Collection. One bottle broke in transit, much to my dismay, and two other polishes got some polish on their bottles, so my photo shoot features only 6 of the 8 that made it intact.


I'm also excited by my first Barielle nail care purchase! I ordered the Barielle Love Your Nails Acetone-free Nail Polish Remover Towelettes. The round container with screw top contains 40 towelettes and will be very handy for traveling. I promptly removed my Essie St. Lucia Lilac from all 10 fingernails with one pad, true to Barielle's claim. The pad worked really well!! The fragrance was not too overwhelming, unlike the harsh and not terribly effective nail polish removers from the drugstore. Good stuff!

I gave these 6 polishes a try and share my own swatches below. These are the "Nail Noob" ("Nail Dufus" seems a bit too harsh on myself!) version of swatches. If you want to see the super-gorgeous pictures from the expert beauty bloggers, try these out from All Lacquered Up and Scrangie.


First up is "Putt-E-On-Me." This is a light brown putty color, so pretty!! This polish will be a great neutral this fall, definitely.

"Get Mauve-ing" is a lovely rose color, a mauve dusted down with some brownishness. Another great neutral like the putty brown, but with some color.

I was really excited about "Slate-of-affairs" since it seemed an unusual shade of slate blue. I was a bit concerned that it was seeming more purply when I first brushed it on, but the second coating brought out the color more, seen here on my pinky finger! It's blue, but with a neutral sensibility!


Wow! This light yellowy-green metallic is SO pretty!! I know forest green is the nail color trend for fall, but "Polished Princess" will be just as lovely. In fact, I am leaning toward wearing this one first. It seems just as fun for summer as for fall----my personal vision for fall really embraces the putty, grey, dusty mauve and slate blue colors offered, not so much the metallic yellow-green. I think this color will be an excellent "transition" nail color, because I am certainly not ready to go all dusty and greyed out!


I am SO GLAD I rustled up some nice codes so I could get the 6 ALU colors AND add some other Barielle shades. "Date Night" is a fantastic forest green that shows green and not the black-green that a lot of forest greens do (this concern was important to me when choosing a leather handbag in forest green). This dark emerald-y green RAWKS!!

"Secret Encounter"---love that name!---is a metallic magenta. This color is dark but still packs a gorgeous magenta punch!!


I slopped some of the bright yellow creme "Lemondrops" on as well as the dark grey creme "You-Concrete-Me." Those bottles had gotten some of the spilt polish on them so did not make the "photo shoot." The dark grey is excellent, and I really look forward to wearing that in the fall, definitely. I ordered the yellow because I did not yet have yellow in my nail polish selection, and this yellow will be bright and fun. Summer is not over yet; August has been the hottest month this summer, and I don't think I will lack an opportunity to try this out. Maybe with my canary yellow patent clutch....hmm...

As a complete Nail Newbie, I appreciate the formula on these polishes and the way they apply. The formula is thin but not drippy and runny (stressful when you don't know what you are doing! Having some control is a good thing!). I think I will be able to swipe on two thin coats and not have a gloppy mess, especially on my left hand (I am left-handed). I also am psyched to have some polish remover that is not so harsh and actually works really well.

Time will tell, but I am thrilled with my Barielle polishes and remover and can't wait to see how well these work for me!! Thanks to Michelle of All Lacquered Up for collaborating with Barielle and creating a fantastic array of fall colors! Congratulations on this major achvement!!

Thursday Update

Nail Noob - - YAY! My Barielle nail colors are here! Already! Unfortunately, one bottle arrived broken...oh noes! That is kind of disappointing, and I will have to contact Barielle and see if they can send me a replacement. The broken bottle was Lava Rock, which was the extra ALU color I added to the 5 that I could not do without. (I would gladly own the whole ALU set, of course, but my budget is a bit limited).

Project Runway -- Thank heavens PR is finally back. Oh, Tim Gunn, how I have missed you!! And this group of designers seems to be a big improvement so far over the last batch. Lifetime has, thankfully, not changed the tried-and-true Project Runway formula....same soundtrack, format, everything. I am TiVoing the 11:30 EST showing. So don't tell me what happens, lol! Hmm, let me turn my Twitterfox updates off so a spoiler does not pop up and ruin things. There. Better! Anyway, the one major change is the kind of commercial I am forced to sit through (yes, I misplaced my TV clicker again!). Bizarre shows on this channel....

I am a big Project Runway fan. I have a love-hate relationship with the show, actually. I adore the show, but I also spend a lot of time bemoaning all the ways the producers try to ruin a reality show that has the potential to rise far above the drivel of the typical reality show! We are off to a good start though. I didn't mind the first challenge....there will be plenty of time for crazy innovation challenges, I am sure! I am not a big fan of Lindsay Lohan, either, but I thought she did very well as the guest judge. She has definitely worn her share of fashion, and her comments were quite intelligent.

Blogging -- Well, so far the blog is shaping up pretty well. I haven't completely quit yet. The "Euridice Beauty" component seems to be emerging much more than the other topics about which I plan to blog. Beauty, make-up and cosmetics are what I am currently obsessing over, so there you are!

I recently discovered YouTube beauty tutorials and instantly became addicted. I had made a New Year's resolution to start wearing make-up again, and I kept it for 2 or 3 weeks in January. Well, it's never too late! I'm now wearing make-up daily and using the idea of eye makeup as an outlet for self-expression. So far, my laziness and unwillingness to get up in the morning have not stifled this new-found creativity. But of course I am out shopping like crazy!!! The instant nail polish collection is only the most recent aspect of my beauty obsession.

Squeeeee! Ordered my Barielle All Laquered Up Fall 09 Colors!

Well, that's rather a long title, but I like to be very clear what my posts are about. Ha! I'm just a little excited because I placed my first Barielle order ever and used some great codes to boot!

With YouTube tutorials and beauty blogs galore, learning about beauty products and cosmetics is easier than it's ever been. Especially cool is when a blogger or YouTuber becomes really successful and gets the opportunity to develop or collaborate on their own products.

The first nail-specific blog I've come across, "All Lacquered Up," is an awesome source of information. Michelle's reviews and swatches in this blog were immensely helpful for discovering and researching which nail polishes I would like to try. When I came upon the Barielle fall-autumn 2009 collection on which Michelle collaborated with "Celebrity Manicurist Elle, Creative Director for the Shades by Barielle line," I was so impressed. Wow! How fun to read about the inspiration for the colors and the whole development process. Most important, I was blown away by the gorgeous colors!! I quickly made plans to buy 5 of them, if possible.

Fast-forwarding a few days later to today, I placed my order for the following colors: Putt-E-On-Me (putty creme), Lava-Rock (black with red pearlized), Polished-Princess (yellowy green metallic), Slate-Of-Affairs (slate blue creme), U-Concrete-Me (medium gray creme), Get-Mauve-ing
(greyish mauve creme). I also threw in Lemondrops (bright yellow), Secret Encounter (metallic magenta), and Date Night (metallic green).

Currently Barielle has a buy 2 get one free special. $50 orders have free shipping (which is why I added more colors).

I used a 15% one-time code I obtained by signing up to be a member, but when Googling for any additional codes, I came across yet another great beauty site to explore, Body and Soul, which in its discussion of this very collection threw in two more codes I used! FREE10 brought 10% and the PDF "The Perfect Manicure Guide" in the tiny link at the bottom left contained another 10% code. Yay!

I got free shipping and the extra colors for about $38 total!! I know I don't have any readers yet, but if you stumble across this: get these colors---and use these codes---while they are hot!!

Squeeee!