Barielle High Steppin’ Collection for Summer 2010

For summer, Barielle is releasing six shades of summery shades in late April/early May. There are quite a few metallic finish shades in this collection, which made me a bit wary, as I cannot seem to minimize brushstrokes enough to feel good about wearing a metallic finish polish. Freestyle has only a slight metallic finish, so I was able to work with that one, but Passion Pirouette and Slow Motion are both distinctly metallic and were less easy for me to work with. Electric Boogie is absolutely divine and if you’re a fan of dark blues, you might just have to get this shade.

• Passion Pirouette is a reddened fuchsia-purple with a metallic finish with a silver-ish overlay. If you take your time with this shade, I think you can bang out a pretty fun, metallic-look with minimal brush strokes. With metallic finishes, less is definitely more — you don’t want to have to go back over the same area, because you want to minimize the brush strokes as much as possible. It is an opaque shade, though, as it only requires two coats for a good, opaque color.
• Slow Motion is a gray, lilac-tinged shade with a metallic finish. This shade takes about three coats to go opaque, but I found it was harder to disguise the brushstrokes, because the color itself is on the light side.
• Belly Dance is a slightly grayed fleshy beige with champagne shimmer. This applied beautifully; it was easy to apply and went on smoothly. I found two coats was about right, though I applied three for good measure.
• Night Moves is a silver with an almost pewter cast and a very glittery, more foil-like finish than a metallic-finish. Because the glitter is noticeable, it helps to disguise any brush stroke issues. This really did remind me of foil… but way, way more intense. It’s like foil met a disco ball and they had a glitter-tastic baby.
• Electric Boogie is a rich, deep water blue with night sky sparkle. This is truly the standout shade of the six. This is a seriously lush color that looks kind of sexy on nails. It has sky blue shimmer and larger, more obvious blue-teal flecks of glitter. Beautiful!
• Freestyle is a pastel mint green with champagne gold micro-glitter. This shade was the sheerest of the bunch and definitely needed three coats to look opaque, but three was good. It has a slightly metallic finish, so some brushstrokes are visible, but much less obvious than with Passion Pirouette and Slow Motion.

LOVE Electric Boogie, LIKE Freestyle and Night Moves, but would SKIP Passion Pirouette.

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• Product: 26/30
• Value: 8/10
• Ease of Use: 4/5
• Packaging: 4/5

Recommendation:  It’s not a solid collection, because not all shades are made equal, but there are some nice shades to be found within the collection as well.  If you do like metallic finishes and have no issues working with them, though, then you may enjoy the entire collection!

Availability: May 2010

See more photos & swatches!

Passion Pirouette, Slow Motion, Belly Dance

Night Moves, Electric Boogie, Freestyle

Barielle Passion Pirouette Nail Lacquer

Barielle Passion Pirouette Nail Lacquer

Barielle Passion Pirouette Nail Lacquer

Barielle Slow Motion Nail Lacquer

Barielle Slow Motion Nail Lacquer

Barielle Slow Motion Nail Lacquer

Barielle Belly Dance Nail Lacquer

Barielle Belly Dance Nail Lacquer

Barielle Belly Dance Nail Lacquer

Barielle Night Moves Nail Lacquer

Barielle Night Moves Nail Lacquer

Barielle Night Moves Nail Lacquer

Barielle Electric Boogie Nail Lacquer

Barielle Electric Boogie Nail Lacquer

Barielle Electric Boogie Nail Lacquer

Barielle Freestyle Nail Lacquer

Barielle Freestyle Nail Lacquer

Barielle Freestyle Nail Lacquer