Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily with bold leopard spots (Barry M Nail Art Pens)

Barry M Nail Art Pens

I seldom do nail art, but when the Barry M Nail Art pens were released a few weeks ago, I couldn't resist buying a couple to try! They've been sitting around on my desk ever since, as I've not really thought up an interesting way to use them.

I'm a great fan of animal prints, so eventually I decided to try out the pens on a big-scale leopard design, which I copied from a leopard print cardigan of mine. I wasn't too sure this would work out, so I did my experimentation over an existing mani that was several days old - one of my all time favourites, Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily.

Here are a couple of pictures of RBL Aqua Lily on its own...... Aqua Lily is a vibrant teal. I'd describe it as a blue leaning teal; it reminds me of the colour of the sea on some of my favourite beaches in the Hebridean Isles. It has a subtle shimmer of pink running through it too.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily

On to the nail art pens, these are surprisingly easy to use. They have a very fine tip, and once you've got the polish (or whatever it is) flowing after the intial priming (you need to pump them up and down on a piece of paper until the pigment flows before using for the first time) the colour flows very smoothly and it's pretty much like drawing on your nails with a felt pen. MUCH easier than using a brush, as you don't have to worry about reloading the brush and the polish drying out as you work. I tried out a few simple line and dot designs first, and the pens are great for fine work. Also, if you mess up, it's easy to remove the design as you work; either scrape the bits where you've gone wrong off with another nail, or scrub the whole lot off with a nailbrush and hot soapy water!

For this design I drew on the white centres of the spots first, on all my nails, then went back and added the black.

I was really pleased with the way this turned out. Although it was only intended as an experiment, I ended up wearing it for several days, and I only removed it when I had a meeting at work that I thought it was rather unsuitable for.

Barry M Nail Art Pens

I bought the Barry M Nail Art Pens from my local Superdrug. Alternatively, they are available online at Barry M's website. I bought Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily from Rescue Beauty Lounge; this is a very popular colour and sold out very quickly, although again RBL often reinstate retired colours so if this is a colour you like it's worth keeping an eye out for an RBL 'Bring it Back' release. Aqua Lily has already been re-released like this in 2012.