CIATÉ Feathered Manicure

Oh Ciaté, what will you come up with next in the innovative world of nail art!?

I remember how the craze started last year around the fall when they released Caviar nail sets. Admittedly, they looked stunning...but good luck keeping them like that for 10 minutes after you did them. There would be tiny coloured balls bouncing everywhere and randomly plunking off my nails all day long. 
Needless to say, an hour or two later and it looked like complete crap. 

I played around with it a bit and realized if you owned a gel shine kit, you could actually "seal" in the "caviar beads" with a top coat and setting the polish. Good luck trying it with a basic clear topcoat - the rainbow caviar bled everywhere!
Unfortunately for me, I simply couldn't handle the grainy texture on my nails and proceeded to pick the entire thing off. 

Next in line were the Velvet manicure sets. 
Great idea, really, it was...until you washed your hands. Ever seen wet velvet or suede?I ended up using the loose "velvet" with a glitter adhesive and applying it as an eyeliner.
It looks stellar!

Then they graced us with the sequin manicure set - which was very similar to the caviar set in the sense that it had giant chunks of glitter that you adhered to the polish. Again, terrible texture and personally didn't enjoy the look. I just took the glitter and used it with my make up.
After that....the very colorfoil manicure set [don't you love the play on words there?]. These were a great idea and actually looked fantastic...if you were lucky enough to get a set where the glue either wasn't fucked up or dried up completely. I ended up just taking the foil pages and using them with the Lip Rock adhesive on my lips. It basically looks amazing.

"Corrupted Neons" kinda came and went and is still lingering around but no one really seemed to care a whole lot. If it was a "glow in the dark" type of thing that might be interesting..but black light? Where the hell am I going to be where there are black lights everywhere?
I'm what you would consider a goth gal - I'm not hitting up any raves any time soon. 
Oh yea...and there was those "chalkboard" nails in there too somewhere. Almost forgot about those guys. Cool idea, though I found the pen tips too large to do anything cool with. Gel pens worked about the same though.

And finally this fall, we've arrived at Feathered Manicures. 

I was automatically intrigued.
I'm not sure if it was by the idea of having real feathers on my nails or if it was that this girls eye makeup was gorgeous.
Regardless, I had to see what it was all about.

You can get the whole kit for $25 CAD, which really is kind of a good deal since the kit comes with everything you need to make this happen...and again and again if you take the time to hit up a dollar store for more feathers or your local Michaels.

Here's what you get inside:

Despite it seeming like something simple, I still like to make sure I'm doing things by the instructions so that if I screw it up, I don't write a review blaming a product for not working properly when it's actually just me having done it incorrectly.
There's even a handy youtube video out there.

Base coated my nails.
Painted them a rather neutral shade [unlike me].

Applied the feathers. 

Cut em'

Filed em' 

and waited for it to fully dry. 

Then came the top coat. 

Now, this might seem like a simple idea, however, the feather is laying towards my cuticle. 

And I'm apply topcoat from my cuticle to the tip. 

Meaning, it's going against the grain of the feather. 

After struggling and feeling useless with my right hand [I'm right handed]. There's something that never crossed my mind about cutting with tiny scissors with the wrong hand. Luckily, I still have 4 fingers and a thumb on my right hand. 

This might be something to do with friends so they can help you. 

Anyway...here's what the end result was [and yes, this is the good hand. You dont' want to see the other one. Trust me!]

It's not bad.
I dont' hate it. 

I don't love it. 

I probably won't do it again. 

Now...to wait for the next cool thing to come through....
And off topic...any of you still rocking the newsprint nails?
I LOVE those!
Every time I do my nails like that I get nothing but compliments & a lot of "How do you do that!?" which I happily oblige them with the answer.
YAY for making friends with strangers!