I blogged a few weeks back about Ciate Dolls House collection as well as mentioning that they had a sale on, I did say I had purchased a couple of things and this was one of them. It's normal retail price is £18 but I snapped it up for a teeny tiny £4 - what a bargain huh. I also know I'm quite late in the game with the caviar hype but in all honesty I didn't purchase this for the caviar beads, it was actually the base polish that attracted me. I figured it was worth the £4 alone.
Opening up the box you'll find two bottles, one of which consists of the micro-pearl, 'caviar' beads and the other is your base colour polish. You'll also find a teeny metal funnel and a clear plastic rectangle tray which it all sits in. The gorgeous spring toned yellow polish is called, Loop The Loop and the caviar beads come in varied contrasting shades such as fuchsia and royal blue.
With this being my first go at beaded nails I wanted to try a few things. I wanted to first follow the instructions and secondly I wanted to add a topcoat and see if that made a difference. On the left you'll find the Loop The Loop on it's own, this was four coats - it was so streaky upon application. The formula is quite runny and thin which is why I think it took so many coats, that being said the yellow shade is just so delicious and happy looking.
In the centre (left picture) and on the right (right picture) you'll notice the beads are clearer and more defined than the blurry twin beside it. The instructions tell you to apply your coats of colour polish and then over the tray you cover your tacky nail with the micro beads. Keep adding until you can't add anymore and allow to dry. If you follow these instructions you will find that the beads look clearer but they fall off, most of them literally within minutes which is why this nail although clearer, shows more gaps.
I decided to try a top coat over them just to see if it would give the look some strength. You can see that there's less gaps but straight away the topcoat smudged all of the colour so it looked like a big blurry mess. The topcoats a no-go guys.
I decided just to do away with the damn balls and go for plain colour after all it was the reason why I purchased the set in the first place. My gorgeous cousin re-homed the balls and the funnel and was so grateful, she's into arty nails more than I am as I personally love a good glossy cream polish alone or I mix in up with some textural liquid sand polishes when I feel like throwing my hands up in the air and waving them like I just don't care... *coughs*
Due to Ciate giving you everything you need to do your manicure you don't actually waste any of the micro pearls. You simply just pop them back in the bottle via your cool albeit tiny funnel, like so.
So would I recommend this? Absolutely. If you have a little princess (one that doesn't eat crayons, we're talking a bit older) or love crafting or know someone who does you're never going to go wrong with these. You never know having balls on your nails may just suit you better than it does me. They're still available over on the Ciate website here, but this colour option seems to be out of stock just now - they have a super pretty Cotton Candy version (light blue almost mint) available so it seems.
* Purchased Myself *
I've been curious about these sets, but have never tried one. I really love the colors in this particular pairing! So fun and springy.
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They're so easy to use Erin, I would absolutely recommend giving it a go. The newer shades of the caviar sets are gorgeous too, very spring-summer. x
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