When I was picking a nail varnish on Saturday I wanted to do some nail art but I was feeling very uninspired after routing through my nail varnish. I chose to use one of the Ciate ones I had in my advent calendar as it was one I loved the colour of but hadnt used yet. It's called Cabaret.
I love the wear of Ciate polishes. They are streaky after one coat but after two give a gorgeous finish and last really well. When looking for my top coat I spotted some studs I'd ordered from eBay. You can find similar ones here. I always get nail stuff from eBay and usually from China as it's so cheap. You just have to wait a while for delivery.
These particular studs are great as they have flat backs so I don't feel the need to pick them off. When I've done this before and use Caviar type beads they annoyed me quickly. Caviar manicures annoy me after 24 hours and I tend to pick them off.
This manicure lasted me over 48 hours. In that time, I cooked, cleaned, had a bath and spent a whole day in work. In that time only one stud fell off. That's pretty impressive to me. The only thing was some of the studs ended up looking more silver than gold as the colour wore off.
To do this manicure. I painted two coats of nail varnish. Then used my Seche Vite and applied it one nail at a time. I sprinkled the studs onto a DVD case and touched them gently with my dotting tool till they were all the right way up.
Using a not very hygienic method (but it's my nails and easiest so doesn't matter) I lightly dabbed the end of my dotting tool on my tongue then found it was easier to get a stud on the end. I've tried other methods and they don't work as well. If you don't have a dotting tool you could get one cheap on eBay when you order studs or use a toothpick, tweezers or something similar. When a stud was on my dotting tool I gently pressed this into the wet top coat and continued to apply them. Once one nail was done I applied top coat to the next nail and repeated. When they were all done I added a layer or top coat over the top.
I'm so impressed with how long this manicure lasted and how quick it was to do. Which surprised me. I'll be doing this more as I love the way it looks. Im gutted I lost a nail on the way home so I've had to take a them off but all studs were still strong, none were loose and I think I'd have got another couple of days out of it.
Do you like stud manicures?
Love M
Xxx
