Ciate London Flower Mani with a Vintage Twist

Hello Lovelies!  Happy Wednesday, I hope all of you are having a good week so far.  Today, I wanted to share with you a manicure kit from Ciate London, their flower manicure kit.  I originally found this kit at Sephora but passed it up because the price was too steep for my taste.  However, I was recently shopping at a local department store (Burlington Coat Factory) and found the same kit for a fifth of the price so I had to get it.

The kit includes a mini polish, a full size quick dry top coat, two pots of dried flowers, a pair of tweezers (out of place in the picture), and a nail file.  From the browsing I've done on the internet, it appears this kit comes in two color combination 'Bada Bloom' and 'Strike a Posy'.  This kit is the 'Bada Bloom' kit which consists of a pale blue polish 'Ferris Wheel' along with purple, blue, and reddish dried flowers.  The 'Strike a Posy' kit consists of a pink polish and yellow, blue, and white dried flowers.  I, of course, picked the blue kit because it is my favorite color. 

In addition to the kit I used a couple other items for this mani:
Base coat - Yellow Stopper
Secondary polish - purple polish, Ciate London 'Poppet'
Small dotting tool
Striping tape

I started out with three thin coats of the pale blue polish, and applied the quick drying top coat to my thumb and ring fingers.

Using a small dotting tool and the purple polish I dotted my pointer, mid, and pinky fingers.

When my thumb and ring fingers were dry I applied striping tape vertically along the nail and applied the purple polish over top, then immediately removed the tapes.

With the background design complete, I applied a layer of top coat and then placed dried flowers over top in random patterns.  I did pre-trim some of the flower pieces with a small pair of scissors.  Once, I was mostly satisfied with the placement of the flowers I applied two final layers of top coat.

Before, I tried this nail art design I was very keen of the idea of dried flowers on my nails.  However, now that I have tried them I find that I don't care for them as much as I though I would.  I like how they look but the one thing that makes me dislike them is that I could not get them to lay flat on my nails.  My nails are very curved both horizontally and vertically, I spent a great deal of time trying to press the flowers down.  I applied two layers of top coat hoping that it would weigh the flowers down but I still ended up having issues with the flowers sticking up, especially the purple ones.  I dislike this because the flowers will snag on things and the manicure will be ruined quicker because of it.

I really like the look of this manicure, but I'm sad about the finished product.  Sometimes, I really dislike having curved nails.  I am glad that I found this kit for a fraction of the originally price, I think I would have been even more unhappy with this if I had paid full price for the kit.  Considering I purchased the entire kit for far less than I would have spent on the top coat alone makes me more than okay with this purchase.  The kit itself is actually a great product because it includes everything you need for a basic dried flower manicure, it just didn't work out for me in the way I'd like.  I hope you found this review/tutorial useful, thank you for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,

 



April Nail Art Challenges

April is in full swing, the weather is getting warmer, plant and animals are coming alive, and manicures are getting lighter and brighter.  Well, for those of use that stick with seasonal colors anyways.  But what designs and patterns should we paint?  If you need some inspiration or a little challenge, join with me in these two Instagram nail art challenges.

First up is the #nailthattechnique challenge.  I have participated in this challenge for the last couple of months and I love it.  Each week's theme is a different nail art technique, the design and colors are entirely up to you.  I really like this challenge because it helps me explore new techniques as well as work on others that I could use some practice.  For April, the glitter tint challenge will be something I have never done so that should be interesting.  The double stamping challenge will allow me to practice my stamping technique which we all know I am not very good at.

The other challenge that I'll be participating in this month is completely new, and I am very excited about it.  It is a #freehandchallenge, each week is a different theme and the only rule that applies is that the design has to be free hand drawn or painted.  This means no stamping, stickers, vinyls, or decals.  So, dust of your brushes and dotting tools because this is all done by hand.  I actually already completed and posted the first week's Flower challenge, it was the Garden Easter Egg Hunt I created.  I'm quit proud of it, and I've already got most of my other themes for this challenge planned out.  I just have to find the time to get them done, that allusive little thing always seems to be the problem, doesn't it?

What is a Nail Art Challenge?

For my fellow plebes out there who have never heard of or participated in a challenge, here is the low down.  A nail art challenge is created by a person or groups of persons, to inspire creativity and challenge a nail artists skills.  Rules are usually very simple and easy to follow and are typically not very restrictive.  For instance, with the challenges above the restriction lies in the technique or theme but otherwise you are free to do what you want.  I have seen some challenges that are color specific or polish type, such as holo, specific but leave other details open for the creator to decide on. 

 

The deadlines provided are also not set in stone, but are there as a guideline.  I find the deadlines very helpful in planning out my manicures and blog posts.  You also don't have to complete every weekly theme, or you can do multiple designs for one theme.  I personally try to complete one design for each week's theme.  When I am restricted by time I might combine two challenges into one nail art design to keep on schedule (or as close to on schedule as I can get).

 

The big question I've been asked, is what do you get in return for completing one of these challenges?  The answer is the simple, joy and the satisfaction of completing (mostly) beautiful nail art designs.  There are no awards or prizes for completing one of these challenges, at least not in any challenge I've found.  These challenges are simply for personal self-fulfillment, to challenge your skills, and inspire your creativity.

 

These challenges really help keep me going and help me when I get a mental block on what to create next.  In addition, to the monthly challenges I often do (but not always) the Nail Polish Queen's weekly challenges.  The NPQ is a group of like minded individuals that share nail art and nail related things in a Google+ community.

 

I hope you will join me in these fun and interesting challenges.  Stay tuned to see what I come up with.  Thanks for stopping by see you next time.

 

Your Fellow Plebe,