Barielle Nail Polish Color Collection

I love Marshalls. I know it’s not for everyone as it’s often a messy, crowded, chaotic place. But damn, does it ever sometimes offer some great details. Case in point: Barielle’s Nude & Naughty Colour Collection, which I picked from the John Street Marshalls last month. Featuring five nude shades, this kit normally retails for $25 but I grabbed it at Winners for only $9.99.

Prior to discovering this kit, I’d never heard of Barielle. It turns out that it’s an American brand that has its roots in hoof care for horses. Since 2005, it’s been offering nail polish colours that are pregnancy safe, five-free (meaning they don’t contain toluene, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin or camphor) and aren’t tested on animals.

Barielle doesn’t make a look of claims about its polishes beyond “Salon Strength Formula” and “Long Lasting Finish,” both lines that I completely agree with. This polish easily made it seven days with only minor chipping and no cracking or peeling. It likely could have lasted for longer but I have a bit of ADD when it comes to nail polish and after about a week, I always feel the need to remove whatever colour I’m wearing (fun fact: this polish peeled off easily and cleanly without the need for nail polish, a bonus for me).

But while this polish behaved wonderfully once it was on, applying it wasn’t always smooth. I found the formula to be a bit of the thin side, which sometimes resulted in uneven coverage. In those cases, I ended up layering on this product, leading to a couple nails having a thick layer of mushy polish of them that indented when say, the edge of a sheet touched them.

All of the Barielle colours I tried dried to a super-glossy finish, which would have looked awesome if the polish was perfectly applied. Unfortunately, more than a couple of my nails initially looked a bit rough, partially because the aforementioned issues with unevenness and indenting and partially because I’m no manicurist. With a less glossy polish, these issues wouldn’t have been that noticeable however, because this product is so shiny I found myself having to redo a few nails the following day.

Still, when this polish did work, it looked amazing and it definitely lasted. While the colours in the Nude & Naughty collection aren’t overly exciting, they are super practical and wearable and exactly what my nail polish collection was missing. They also have fun names, like “Pillow Talk” and “I Got A Headache,” if you care about that kind of thing.

Barielle sells the individual bottles of their polishes for $8 each, meaning that its Color Collections are a great deal, even at their standard $25 price. There are over two-dozen packages available and some of the combinations are quite pretty.

Would I buy this product: I would happily grab another one of Barielle’s Colour Collections and while I’d prefer to get it on sale, even at $25, it’s a great deal. Yeah, it’s not the best polish out there but for the price, it’s a good deal.

Should you buy this product: Yes, just have a bit of patience with it.