Ciate Nail Foils

If you saw my last post which was about my Vogue magazine purse, you would have seen I have spent the first part of the week in Falmouth, Cornwall for a spa break.

Mum and I went shopping in Truro and spent a long time sifting through TK Maxx for bargains. One of the things that caught my eye was a Ciate foil nail kit. It was under £10.

In this kit you get a Ciate nail polish, the one in my kit was Pepperminty, foil nail glue, a swatch wheel and a selection of foils, including pink, blue, silver holographic, yellow and pink. I had used nail foils before without too much luck so I was keen to test these out to see how they compared.

First step is to paint your nails with two coats of the polish, and you can use any base from any brand you like, but it is nice this kit came with a polish. Wait for this to totally dry. Then paint on a thin layer of the glue, wait until the glue becomes clear (it has a pearly sheen when first applied) then take the foil, place it on the nail and press firmly.

Remove to see the foil has transferred to the nail. However, I found if you lightly and quickly dab the foil you get a nice random coverage. I used pink and yellow and finished with a top coat.

This is a bit messy, I was a bit trigger happy with the glue but hopefully you get the idea! I like the random placement of the foils but you can totally cover the nail with the foil. I think these bright foils would look brilliant with a dark, vampy base polish.

All in all I enjoyed using the kit, it is nice to add some extra sparkle to a manicure and it looks different to a glitter topcoat. The process didn't take too long either.

Have you tried nail foils out before? What did you think?

It worked!

So my first attempt at using nail foils was a massive fail, I watched videos on how to apply them and the method is very simple, but when I tried I just could not get the foil to transfer properly. The foil just applied really patchy and I couldn't get it to transfer smoothly. That was about a month ago and I just decided that I was never going to get this right. Determined not to be defeated I fished my kit out today and wanted to have another go. I am thrilled to say this time round worked, really well! I am not sure what was different, I think my base polish was the difference which might be the reason.

I painted my nails with two coats of a gold polish by Orly (sent from my swap friend Nicole over at Noir Lacquer) then painted a thin coat of the nail glue on the bottom half of my nails and waited till the glue dried clear. I cut off a section of foil and placed the piece on the nail where the glue was (colour side up) and rubbed the piece on the nail with making sure there were no lumps and bumps. Carefully lifting the paper up I was thrilled the foil had transfered. I love the way this looks, so pretty.

This time round my faith has been restored in my ability to apply foils to look semi presentable. I think the key with foils is practice and patience! 

First time for foils (and a new Nubar polish)

I have never used nail foils before but have seen load of gorgeous manicures on various blogs and videos on utube which really made me want to try them out. I bought a bog standard nail glue from Amazon and two tubes of nail foils. One is called Silver Dots and is a silver pixilated foil and the other is called Wrapping Paper and consists of silver, yellow, red and purple foil stripes.

Silver Dots:

Wrapping Paper:

I haven't tried these out just yet, but am hoping to do a mani soon, my nails are still rather short at the moment. The foils cost £3.01 each from Amazon. 

Next up I bought a new polish from Nubar called Reclaim, a gorgeous green holographic polish. The polish is from their Going Green collection and costs about £8 from Amazon. I just love the look of this polish, the holo effects are amazing in the bottle and I really hope it is just as impressive on the nail.

I can't wait to try this one out! Have you come across this holo before? Have you ever tried foils? If so do you have an fav colours? xx