Caviar Manicure (Updated)

I was browsing nail art ideas and I came across a new craze that is dominating the international beauty and nail industry. Its called a Caviar Manicure.

Concept:

Lovely picture and Tutorial from Lucy's Stash

How it works is you apply coloured micro-beads to your, wet, nail polish and when it dries, it looks like you have fish eggs/caviar on your nails. (It looks more like caviar when you use black beads but they come in all different colours to suite different styles and outfits).

Ciate, a UK brand, have claimed that they originally came up with the concept of a caviar manicure. You can visit their website Here

Picture from Lucy's Stash - View Tutorial for this look, Here

Not Another Poppie did a great review about what she thought of Caviar Manicures. Click here to visit her site.

My Turn:

Naturally, reading about all the hype, I had to try it for myself.
I had no idea where to get these beads besides online, which would kill my purse, and the odd craft shop here and there. Luckily for me I stumbled upon a strange smelling Chinese shop while window shopping in Pretoria. I was over the moon when I saw that they had 'cheap-cheap' nail art packs for R25 with micro-beads in, so I bought a few.

I only tried the 'fish eggs' on one finger, because I was skeptical of how it would turn out, but to my surprise...I fell in love!

My Caviar Manicure. I used a Tip Top base coat, Kangol's Aquadisiac and a Tip Top, top coat (No top coat for the caviar'd nail).

You can view the Tutorial on how to apply your caviar manicure on Ciate's website

The beads don't look like anything fancy until I used my flash or when the beads hit any light at a specific angle, the colour of the beads would just *POP*! Its Stunning!!!

Its a good idea to use nail polish that is almost exactly the same colour as your beads. If you look at the left hand picture, you can clearly see the polish underneath the 'Caviar' (Oh, How un"posh" of me :P).

BUT THEN....FAIL!

I blow dried my hair and most of the beads melted.....and promptly fell off!

All my beads died :(

I was really sad that all my hard work and time waiting for all my layers to dry properly was wasted just for it all to come off 4 hours later.

Final Thoughts

I absolutely love the concept and how the little 'fish eggs' look but in my everyday tasks it just wouldn't last.

The moral of the story is: If you have lots of money to buy good quality beads, a hair stylist that does your hair everyday and a butler that does all your housework, then your caviar manicure should hold on for quite a while. And if not...then you're probably just wasting your time.

By all means try it out for yourself, maybe you can report back on how to make your caviar manicures last. You can buy the Original Ciate Caviar Manicure set from Sephora or Amazon for $25 (R195 at current exchange rate) or directly from Ciate for $18 (R140 at current exchange rate).

I hope you enjoyed this post. Share all your DIY Caviar Manicures with me on twitter @MsClairaBella or on my Facebook Page. Don't forget to subscribe by email (Top right hand side of this page) to make sure you don't miss out on more fabulous posts in the future.

UPDATE: CIATE IS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Maskscara is the oficial distributor of Ciate in South Africa and the beautiful paint pots and caviar kits have hit our sunny shores!

Ciaté Paint Pots are available at selected retail stores and salons countrywide as well as the online store www.maskscara.co.za and are R95.00 per unit.

Ciaté Caviar Manicure™ Kits are available at selected retail stores and salons countrywide as well as the online store www.maskscara.co.za and are R195.00 per kit.

I will be doing a post once i get my keen, grubby little hands on these delicious paint pots and caviar kits! I'm hoping the Ciate brand will change my view on how caviar manicures look and last!

Follow Maskscara on Twitter @MaskscaraSA  as well as Ciate South Africa @CiateAfrica.

Miss Claira-Bella

Xoxo