Manic.Monday: Red caviar

Yep, it's here... the first work Monday after the Christmas holidays and the first one of the new year... I'm not going to lie, it was pretty tough getting out of bed and getting ready for work this morning - bright eyed and bushy tailed I'm NOT. To make this Monday a little bit more cheery and since I'm not quite ready yet to let go of that fluffy, warm and cosy Christmas mood I'm sporting a festive inspired mani today, and since I am partial to some red caviar I've added some matching beads as an accent nail using products from Rimmel and MUA.

As a base I've used a Rimmel London Lycra Pro Nail Polish (£3.29) in the shade Jungle Princess. I must confess that I'm not actually sure if this particular formula is still available on the High Street, but I do know that you can get it from Amazon or eBay. I haven't seen it in Boots or Superdrug which is a real shame because this is a brilliant nail polish. First of all it comes with a very wide and flat brush which is lovely to work with since it makes it easy to apply the polish with high precision and it gives a streak free finish because you only need a maximum of 2 strokes per nail - which I think is amazing. Secondly, the formula has just the right creaminess without being gloopy and it attaches well to the brush without any dripping. You can wear just one coat of this polish to get a more sheer shade, however since the formula dries very quickly it's ideal to use if you want to keep on building the color and you'll get about 4 days wear from this wonderful formula.

The shade Jungle Princess is a nice dark rusty cinnamon red with a slight blue shimmer to it, which really stands out if you only wear one coat. In the photos however I have two coats on, and as you can see the shade deepens to a more opaque and almost mahogany red nuance and personally I think it's quite stylish and has a bit more character than your classic dark red.

The caviar mix is MUA's Fashionista Diamond Rocks (£1) in Red Diamond, which is a bead mix dominated by a rusty, slightly orange red color and then there's also some black and silver beads. As with most nail effects the result is best if you work on one nail at a time, finishing that one before you move on to the next. In this case I added a second coat of Jungle princess to all the nails except the accent nail and let that dry for a few seconds while I got the caviar beads ready. Then I added a second coat of Rimmel to the accent nail as well, and I made it a lot thicker than I normally would so that the beads attach better. I prefer to pour the beads straight from the bottle over the nail since you then get a very dense coverage of the beads on the nail - and if you do it over a bowl or something, you can then easily pour them back into the bottle when you've finished, to minimise any waste. When you've covered the nail, gently tap or press down the pearls into the polish and add some more if need be to get a nice, thick and even caviar coverage.

I wouldn't recommend using a top coat over a caviar look since I think it takes away from the effect and it makes the beads look as if they've been glued in, but you can take a tiny bit of top coat and run along the very edge of the nail to seal them in and this also helps to make the tip a bit more resistant to daily wear. This look will last about 3 days of normal daily wear and tear, and if you have a steady hand you can use a cut off q-tip or something to add a tiny drop of the the base shade to the nail and then add more beads to repair the look if it gets a bit thin.

A caviar mani isn't to everyone's liking and Jungle Princess is a lovely and versatile shade that you can easily wear just as it is, but for me the beads add an element of fun, playfulness and dimension. So I've got the red caviar, all I need is some blinis and bubbly, and I'm all set to do New Year's Eve all over again - who's with me?!