Time for something different – Ciate Colourfoil Manicure Review

My first nail-arty post, woo-hoo. I don’t get time to do nail art things as often as I would like, I have a puppy who is very demanding of attention, and not compliant to chase with wet nails you’ve spend ages on. I have had this kit a few weeks and hadn’t even opened to investigate, so on a quiet Sunday afternoon whilst my dog was napping after a long walk, I managed to grab half an hour to try out this kit for the first time…

Again I picked this up in my local CCO, I saw these at Christmas online in ASOS – originally priced at £18.00 – I picked this kit up for £9.99. It came with 1 polish in the shade ‘Cream Soda’ – a colour I felt was a bit boring in the bottle but actually really loved it on my nails before applying the foil layers. 30 sheets of foils in 6 shades (mine was a few short of 30 but maybe that was a CCO flaw), 1 Foil Fix Glue, Instructions and for some reason a Nail Wheel. I guess its so you can practice but to be honest the instructions are so easy I don’t think you’d need to.

Shades left to right: Flash (Holographic Silver), Flirt (Bronze), Feisty (Moss Green), Fling (Dusky Pink), Frost (Silver), Fizz (Holographic Bronze Sparkle)
Firstly you apply 2 coats of your polish, this shade did need 2 to be opaque. After waiting to completely dry you apply the Foil fix to areas on the nail which you want to create a pattern with after waiting a minute you apply the foil, pattern side up to your nail, smooth over and pull off. You can then layer different colours over, I just went for 2 with an extra third on my accent nail.

It’s worth noting that you’re not limited to using the polish it comes with – its just a regular polish and I feel like you could create some much more interesting looks with other brands and colours, I’ll defiantly use this kit in the future with other colours so I will keep you posted.
A couple of things that I would say are:

1. If you’re wanting to apply a coat all over the nails, thinking you’ll get one shiny coat which runs across the nail seamlessly I think you’ll be disappointed as it did not adhere all over where I put the glue leaving small cracks and patches in-between, not an unpleasant look but none the less not smooth all over.
2. I wish the brush on the glue was a little smaller, it seems quite thick so you can rule creating cute dainty designs out with this brush (although this could potentially work with dotting tools… hmm….)
3. The more you layer the less it seems to stick, coats 2 & 3 (on accent nail) definitely didn’t go on as well as the first – whether that was the foil colour or the glue layering I’m unsure.
4. It says you can use a top coat and you defiantly need to, it leaves a slight sticky residue behind where your pattern lies so cover it immediately to protect.
5. Whilst the kit itself is good, you can pick up nail foils on eBay for a hell of a lot cheaper than this kit is, even at a reduced price, if you’re not bothered about the polish I’d shop online first.

In terms of its lasting power The foil itself lasted okay, but the colour out of the holographic silver had rubbed off somehow over the course of about 12 hours, and just looked like a matte silver in the end. As time went on I found myself hating the effect it had created more and more.
Overall I think the kit is okay but overpriced, especially if you’re not bothered about the polish – I will probably just buy foils from eBay in the future and use polishes which I have already to create the same looks that you can buy from these Ciate Kits.

Follow: