Champagne and Caviar.

Ok so I didn't drink champagne while writing this or while doing my nails, this is just a review of the latest trend in nail art - the caviar manicure.

The original, from Ciate, comes in either Black, Mother of Pearl or Rainbow, and is pretty pricey at £18 for a bottle of nail polish and the beads. However, after reading around about this manicure it seems there's a much cheaper alternative!

Many people suggested just getting some tiny beads from a craft shop and using them instead, which is what I did. I bought these no hole micro glass beads from totallycharmed81 on ebay (not currently for sale, but there's plenty of alternatives if you search for them)

The methods for applying them vary but I used this one:

1. Firstly pour the packet of beads into a little bowl/pot.
2. Apply two coats of black nail polish to each nail (I once again used my favourite, Barry M)
3. Apply a layer of Seche Vite - you need to do this one nail at a time.
4. Before it dries, dip the nail in the pot of beads, moving it around a bit to make sure all of the nail is exposed to the beads.
5. Pat the beads slightly to ensure they really stick to the nail.
6. Leave to dry for a couple of minutes.
7. Using the top coat, apply a small amount to the very tip of the nail - if you o the whole nail the colour comes out the beads so just do the tip!
8. Ta da!

(For some reason I only took a photo on my phone :S)

I think these only lasted about 4 hours on my nails! They were beyond irritating, I was trying to cook dinner for 9 people and they just kept falling off (my friends were blissfully unaware that they were eating them!) They did look pretty cool before they fell off though, but not so great when there were big gaps of beads missing :S so I just took them off - easy enough with standard nail polish remover, and I managed to save most of the beads, which are now silver, but I mixed them in with the others so you'd never know.

However, I think I would use them again (going to have to really - I've got so many beads left!) but maybe only as a feature nail. Or get beads in one single colour then paint the nail the same colour so it's not so noticeable when they fall off.