Special Occasion Manicure: my wedding (guest) look!

 

Before you begin bombarding me with hisses & boos, let me just state for the record that I purchased this Ciaté Black Caviar Pearls set before I became aware of any attached controversy … then left it collecting dust on my desk, for fear of being viewed as unfeeling of all the goings-on. Last weekend, however, I was in the mood for a mani look that was completely out of the norm for me since, I would be attending my cousin’s wedding; when my eyes fell on this set, I really felt drawn to giving it a shot; after all, I had spent my hard-earned money on it, right? In order to accommodate my feelings of guilt, however, I decided to only use the “pearls” half of the kit and omitted the lacquer. So there!


 

Say what you will about this brand, but before all the nastiness began, people couldn’t wait for Ciaté products to cross the pond from the UK and land on North American shores. When the early whispers began about their upcoming “Caviar Manicure” sets that were set to launch at Sephora, I admit to being very curious about this concept and really wanted to see it done.  Upon purchasing my set, I realized that instead of black, the caviar pearls reminded me more of a-england’s ‘Saint-George’ (previously reviewed here), the most stunning prismatic deep teal lacquer I have ever seen & worn, and knew without a doubt that that beauty just had to be the base for this look.

  1. I began with base coat on all nails, followed by one coat of ‘Saint-George’
  2. I then went and applied the second coat of lacquer on all nails EXCEPT my ring fingers, which were chosen as the accent nails for this look
  3. allow this second coat of polish to dry for approximately 5 minutes
  4. at this point, I had the tray that came with the set and the bottle of caviar pearls opened and ready to be used
  5. working one hand at a time, I applied a second coat of polish to my ring finger and while it was still wet, I placed my finger over the tray and slowly but gently dispensed the caviar pearls over the nail, turning it slightly to ensure coverage over the entire surface
  6. once the nail was completely covered, I then applied gentle pressure on the pearls to ensure that they had firmly adhered to the lacquer
  7. I repeated this process on the ring finger of the other hand
  8. waiting another 5 minutes, I finished by ensuring that the pearls looked fairly uniform along my nail, removing any “strays” and finished with a layer of top coat on all nails – the accent fingers each received top coat ONLY on the tips

NOTE: removal of the caviar pearls has about the same amount of difficulty and work involved as that of a glitter polish; expect to apply a bit more elbow grease than usual, but unlike glitters, the pearls don’t spread and/or stick to the surrounding skin.


Ciaté black & teal caviar pearls


in natural light


with flash


macro shot

 

Final thoughts: I have stated often enough that I am a “colour purist” and how much I love my dark, murky, and moody shades; creating this type of nail art meshes perfectly with my style, as while there’s some drama & pizzazz in the look, it doesn’t venture into tacky territory – fun, age appropriate (for me, that is!) and creative. Using ‘Saint-George’ as the base made it so much more impressive, in my opinion, as the prismatic effect of the base colour seemed to enhance the teal-coloured pearls much more effectively than a black base would have. All in all, I really enjoyed creating this look, but more than that, I really had a riot with some of the comments I received, such as “did you stick each bead one by one?” — I won’t bother with how I responded!


 

 

 

*Disclaimer: Some product samples provided by the company/PR for my unbiased consideration

About these ads
Category : a england, Caviar Manicure, Ciaté, Special Occasion manicure
Tags : , , ,