I have been so excited to show you the Ciate Emerald collection! I bought it a while ago for £25.00 online. The reason I bought it was because I have wanted to try the crushed velvet manicure so badly, but didn't want to buy just the kit on its own in case I didn't like it. When I saw the kit contained not only the crushed velvet, but caviar and glitter I knew it was the kit for me. Based on the lovely green emerald colour that is going to be the colour of 2013, I was really impressed with the kit, and want to buy all the kits individually now!
The kit contains everything you need, including a tray for all the mess, a clean up brush, and even a little funnel so you can decant the excess back into the bottle for no wastage! Little things like that really make something special to me so I was very impressed.
The actual emerald base colour supplied is called "ditch the heels", and is a full sized Ciate colour. I left one nail without any effects on so you could see it. It is a really lovely colour and I'd happily wear it alone.
None of the effects require a fiddly glue or anything, you just apply it to a wet second coat of the green base. For the caviar effect, you simply shake the bottle over the wet nail, and gently push in the balls to make them stick, and that's it! I love the colours of the beads. The gold, light and dark green give it a really festive feel, and I will certainly be sporting the collection over the Christmas season.
The glitter effect is achieved by dipping the wet second coat into the pot of glitter, and then wiping of the excess with the little brush. You can even afford to sweep over the whole nail to make the surface more flat. I am not 100% happy with the way mine turned out. I think I dipped my finger in a bit to hard, so I have a very uneven surface. I think less is more with this look, and it will last much longer without lots of layers, as I found they keep falling of due to there not being enough surface area for the glitter bits to cling onto! You also don't get such a good look at the pretty array of colours when it's heavily built up.
Finally, the velvet effect. As I bought the whole kit to try this effect I was really hoping I wouldn't be disappointed, and I really wasn't. Applying it was so easy, and the finished effect is exactly how I wanted it to be! It feels and looks exactly how you think it would, and I can't stop touching it. Due to this I think I have actually worn quite a bit of it away after a day, but the look is so versatile and it has really got the cogs in my head turning for future nail art ideas for example fluff, Christmas tree effect, grass??
The general staying power of these effects is actually really good. You can get your hand wet, then towel dry them and have no trouble, mine even stayed pretty tight after a hair wash which I thought would ruin it all. As I said about the glitter before, if you overload it then prepare to have a trail of green and gold glitter behind you. The velvet still feels very velvety after a day at work although the look is probably not as obvious as when I first did it. Quite a few of the caviar balls have fallen off, but after a day at work doing deliveries and opening boxes I would be very impressed if it had stayed on! Most of them are still in tact though and its the ones round the edge of the nail that have fallen off, and even where the balls have fallen off, they leave a little gold/silver imprint so it still looks like there is an effect on them.
Basically, if you want the nails for a certain occasion or party, then do the nails the day that you need them before because that is when they will look they're best.
I absolutely love this kit, but I would love to know what you think about it? Is it perfect for the run up to the Christmas season or just too OTT?
