NOTD Barry M Black and MUA Nail Constellation in Libra

I was very lucky recently and won a giveaway from the lovely Jasmine at Oh So Flawless (thank you!) Included was one of the fairly new MUA Nail Constellations which are a high street dupe of the Ciaté Caviar manicures. They come in a few different colour mixes and I got Libra which contains mostly black beads with a few turquoise. I figured that it would look best over a plain black background and I found a Barry M one in my collection that I hadn't tried yet.

The Barry M Black was streaky on the first application but fully opaque on the second coat. It also dried fairly quickly which is great. The Nail Constellation managed to thoroughly confuse me. It literally couldn't figure out how to open the damn thing! I pulled off the tip and nothing came out... turns out I was being an absolute fool. The entire cap comes off (with a bit off effort) and there is a small piece of plastic sheeting covering the beads. Despite there being an applicator tube I decided it would be easiest to go for a dipping method and promptly poured some into a bowl. The hard part came later when I was trying to put the excess back in the bottle!

I decided to opt for an accent nail rather than a full manicure because it just seems so much easier to wear! The beads themselves stuck very well and I loved the black on black. I think the amount of turquoise beads wasn't very well thought out though. It's practically impossible to achieve even spacing so they just look a bit random and out of place. Not that the colour even mattered, because within a couple of hours the turquoise beads had turned silver. As soon as I got them wet the colour disappeared which is a bit disappointing. Despite the issues I actually really did like the look and they lasted much longer than I thought they would. I always imagined caviar manicures to be more of a one night deal but these lasted a good few days until I took them off (because the Barry M polish had chipped.) I did lose a few on the first day when I pulled something out of my pocket but they mostly stayed put when the polish solidified. I think this pot is going to last absolutely ages, you need hardly any for the look. I'm not sure if I'll buy any more though simply because I'm not sure how much I would wear them. I'm very happy that I got the chance to try them out though, thanks again Jasmine!

You can buy MUA Nail Constellation at Superdrug or on the MUA website for £3. (Bargain!)

Have you tried these or the Ciate manicures? Would love to know what you think!

Lauren