The Look for Less: Ciate's Caviar Manicure

Hi guys! Today I have something a little different for you! If you've ever been on Pinterest looking at manicure photos I'm guessing you've seen Ciate's "Caviar" manicure before. Basically it's microbeads stuck to your nail. Ciate will be selling duos with a base polish and a bottle of the microbeads to create the look. The duo they will be selling is pretty pricey, when it makes it to Sephora I heard it will be around $25. Yesterday I tweeted about how ridiculous that price tag was and a couple people asked for a tutorial on how to get the same look so here is it!

If you've been reading my blog for a while you might have seen me do something similar to this before, back in December I did a post with an accent nail done up with microbeads. If you missed that post you can see it here! Pretty much all you need is the polish of your choice and microbeads which can be purchased at craft stores like Michael's and a bottle of polish which I'm guessing you already have haha!

Here is my finished "caviar" look, the Ciate version does look to have some blue and purple beads in it also but that can be easily achieved by mixing microbeads. You can buy the beads in packs of 6 colors for pretty cheap...I have all that info at the bottom of the post!

If you want to see how to do this mani I've put a little tutorial after the jump!

Macro!

Alright, this is very short because this is like I said...very very easy to do!

What you will need:

* Polish of your choice, I used Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Black Out
* Microbeads, I'm using black beads but these come in a rainbow of colors!
* Paper plate, this is messy!

Step 1: Paint your nails with 1 coat of polish, let dry.

Step 2: One nail at a time paint on a 2nd coat of polish. While the 2nd coat of polish is still wet put your finger over the paper plate and shake the micro beads onto your nail. It is best if you do one nail at a time, if the polish dries the beads won't stick! If you get a big enough container of beads you could also just stick your nail into the beads.

Step 3: Once you shake the beads onto the nail very gently tap them in, I find that this helps them stick longer and it also gets rid of the beads that are just sitting on top of other beads. I also clean up around the cuticle with an orange stick to get rid of any rogue beads.

THAT'S IT!! I said it was easy!  This mani won't last forever and is a bit impractical but it's fun for a night out or a special occasion where you just want to do something fun and different on your nails. You can put a top coat on if you'd like...depending on the beads it might however dull the effect.

For removal I saturate a cotton pad with my regular polish remover and hold it on the nail for about 20 seconds, everything comes off very easily! Removal can also be messy so you might want to do it over a paper plate or over a paper towel.

Just for fun this is what my plate looked like after doing this tutorial...clean up is very easy and you can just pour all those beads back into the container to use next time!

Now lets talk money...like I mentioned at the beginning of the post the Ciate Caviar set will retail for in the neighborhood of $25 at Sephora. I went to Michael's and bought two 6 packs of microbeads, each set of 6 colors was $6.99. Even after buying both of these I'm still saving around $11. Not only am I saving money but I've also got like a bazillion more color options. You don't have to just do black beads on a black base...you could do black and pink beads on a black base or purple beads on a pink base, even a rainbow of beads on a white base...the options are endless!

The first photo below is an accurate photo of the colors in the two sets I bought and the 2nd is the packaging in case you're wondering it looks like! At the Michael's near me these are located in the scrapbooking section...near all the stamping stuff!

At Michel's you can also purchase microbeads in the containers below, it's much bigger than the bottles in the 6 packs above. These big versions are $3.99! I do prefer these because you can take the cap off and just stick your nail into the container...it's much less messy.

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