Ciaté - Jewellery Box

Today I am showing you another untried. I bought this polish blind as there are hardly any swatches or reviews on the net. In fact, I've only found one review, which escaped me when I ordered this nail varnish about four weeks ago during a one-off sale.

Jewellery Box is from Ciaté's Treasured Possessions collection. I went for this shade as I have a mini collection of black polishes and thought it wasn't like anything I already owned.

How can I describe it? The review I read calls it a black glitter, but I think it's more like a Liquid Sand/PixieDust. It's a clear base, packed with tiny, coarse, matte black particles and quite a lot of hexagonal gold holographic glitter, which can be pretty blinding in direct sunlight. It's far too dense to be used as a glitter top coat; I used three coats to achieve full opacity (as is the case with most, if not all, of my Ciaté polishes).

 
I am not a huge fan of textured polishes. I had to buy some as a collector, but the grittiness isn't really my cup of tea. I tried to smooth Jewellery Box with a couple of coats of top coat and I noticed an improvement, but it's still not the finish I am happiest with.

 
A couple of things I love about Ciaté are the super cute bottle (of course!) and the brush. I noticed that this polish was not made in France like they used to, but in the US. Not that it makes any difference to me, but it might be good news for my American readers.

I am on the fence about this one. It is original, without a doubt! If the textured trend is for you, then I would recommend it.

Striping Tape Nail Art (inspired by Phsiiit)

After nine months at home with my girls, my maternity leave came to an end and last week I was back in work. I wanted to do something nice and classy for my first day and remembered this lovely mani which I first saw on Pshiiit.

I'm not going to bore you with the details because it's super easy and Camille has done a video tutorial on her post.

I used OPI Black Onyx as a base and one of my untrieds from Llarowe: the gorgeous multichromatic beauty that is Ludurana Aurora Boreal Show. The name couldn't be any more apt!

Aurora Boreal Show flashes mostly red/copper in artificial light but in natural light it shifts from teal to purple (two of my favourite colours). I love it so much! Multichromes and holos are the stuff dreams are made of! Well, mine at least.

Then I finished the look off with silver striping tape and two coats of top coat. Unfortunately, some of the top coat got under the striping tape and the finish wasn't as smooth as I had hoped.

It was my first time using striping tape in this fashion and I noticed that it peeled off within 24 hours, which was a little disappointing. Still, it was so pretty and I got so many compliments I'd definitely do it again!

Colour Block Nail Art

I recently took part in an "Invisible Friend" gift exchange, which would be like a Secret Santa only not at Christmas. Carolina, the lovely lady who was given my name, sent me, among other things, a Naughty Nautical trio of Essie polishes which luckily I didn't already own. How great is that?!

I was so excited to try my new summery shades, I decided to use them all at the same time!

This mani is 100% Essie: I started with Nourish Me, followed by two coats of Blanc and one of Good to Go.

Then I placed some striping tape to create the patterns and used Naughty Nautical, Full Steam Ahead and Sunday Funday in random places.

I removed the tape with tweezers and finished off with another coat of Good To Go.

It's not a difficult mani but it requires a lot of patience as the base colour needs to be completely dry and striping tape can be fiddly.

I am pleased with the overall look. What do you think?

Marimekko Nail Art

In a bid to stop buying more polishes and start using what I already have, I recently got Nail Candy by California-based sisters Donne & Ginny Geer. I really like their book, it has given me lots of ideas on top of the designs described by them, and I attempted their Marimekko mani for the first time today.

I used Essie Blanc, Color Club Endless Summer and OPI Bullish on OPI, plus a Nubar black striper. The design required a lot of precision so I had to start over on a couple of nails. I love the monochrome stripes and touches of colour on this mani.

I managed to do it while my girls were being extremely well behaved and was quite pleased with the results until I noticed some bubbling on the photos.

Marimekko is a Finnish design company, and when I think of Finland I think of the lovely Moomins cops a friend of mine brought us from her home country. I've never been to visit her in Finland, I hope I can one day.

9 de Julio Original Nail Art

I was going to say "I'm back!", but if you follow me on Instagram you know that I never actually left...

I did, however, make a few small changes to the blog. I hope you like them!

On a day like today but 197 years ago, Argentina, the country I'm from, became independent from Spain. The design on today's mani is a combination of what is commonly known in Argentina as "Guarda Pampa", a geometric design used by the Mapuche tribe; and a gradient in blue and white, with a yellow sun in the centre, to represent the national flag.

The Guarda Pampa is something very traditional in clothing, accesories and utensils and often seen in souvenirs. I chose the Chakana, a staggered cross which originally comes from the Incas. Black is used for nobility.

I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh? and a black nail art pen. I imagined the design would be much harder to do, but I copied it from a picture I found online and just drew it on my nails, freehand. I repeated it twice on my right hand but the results are a little less sharp.

For the flag I did a double gradient using Essie Blanc and China Glaze For Audrey. Then I painted a circle of Kiko 279 onto a piece of sponge and placed it in the centre of the white stripe. I finished everything off with top coat, of course.

Last but not least, I'll tell you a little bit about the item I am holding. It's called "Mate", pronounced MAH-te (the last "e" sounds like the one in "test"), and it's a traditional South American infused drink. You can read more about it here.