Manic.Monday: Ciaté Cuticle Tattoo's

Greetings everyone and welcome to a new week and as usual on a Monday I'm here to bring you something from the world of nail polishes. If you've read my blog before you'll know that I'm not one to shy away from trying out any nails trends, regardless of how whacky or strange they might seem, but I'm also the first to admit that willingness to experiment does not always equal success. Today's look is not so much about the nail polish itself, as the accompanying cuticle tattoo which is something I wanted to try as soon as I saw the promotional photos of it, and the look just reiterates to me how forward thinking Ciaté is when it comes to nails. Every photo that I've seen of cuticle tattoos is in combination with a very pale and neutral color, letting the tattoo doing the talking so to speak. I can understand that and personally I think that you either have to go pale or full on with vibrant colors - there just doesn't seem to be room for anything in between.

Not feeling quite brave enough to go full out (believe it or not) I chose to go with a pale neutral shade with Ciaté's Cookies and Cream (£9) a beautiful neutral and sophisticated light ecru shade that will make even the shortest of nails look groomed and elegant. It has the usual lovely Ciaté formula which is just the right consistency, not being too thick or thin and even though the brush is of very average width its easy to work with to get a streak free opaque finish, despite being a lighter shade. It's quick drying and wears very well - on my nails I would say that it lasts for about 4 days before I need to retouch the finish and it's a shade that I think would work well with most skin tones.

Let's move on to what actually makes this look - the Ciaté ASOS Exclusive Cuticle Tattoo's (£10). You'll get a set with five different designs and stencils - one set for for your left hand and one for your right hand, and even if you choose to only go for an accent nail, you'll have enough tattoos for at least 30 wears - talk about value for money! Once you've decided on which design you want; a diamond shape, an arrow, a bow, three stars or a floral chain,  you cut out each tattoo for each finger with a pair of scissors and I would recommend that you apply one tattoo at a time. At the back of each sheet you'll see a shape outlined that you need to follow with your scissors and once you've cut that out, you're ready to go once you've removed the clear plastic backing. Place the shape with the outline facing upwards which is also slightly sticky as close to the cuticle as you can get, press down and then use either a cotton pad soaked in water across the back, or just some drops of water to transfer the stencil onto the skin. Once you've added water, the transfer starts very quickly and it's easy to remove the back before the transfer is complete, so take care to make sure that you get the entire design transferred onto your finger before you slide the backing paper away.

The process itself of transferring the tattoo onto the skin is very straight forward and you can't really go wrong, however the trickiest bit is placing the tattoo close enough to your cuticles that it looks nice once you've rubbed the stencil with water. I must admit that I thought that I placed the stencil very close to the cuticle, but in my opinion I probably could have gone even closer and I think that these are things that you'll learn only through trial and error. I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed in the clarity of the outline of the tattoo, if you've seen photos of the cute bow, it looks very clear and precise, although at least with the stars that I chose they are much more faint and not at all what I had pictured, but that could be down to the design. More important is the wear of it; it took me about 10 mins to read and follow the directions properly, being careful with how I traced the outline and then transferring it onto my accent fingers (each ringer finger), however I am VERY disappointed in the wear. It only lasted me a few hrs on one hand before I had washed it away through daily wear and tear and you probably could remove it unintentionally even sooner if you happen to scrub that area just a little bit more than through a normal hand wash e.g. when you apply a hand cream. Considering how long it took me to do just two fingers, I don't think that I would go all out and do one tattoo on each finger and personally I'm not sure that the look is worth it since it's a lot of fiddling for a few hrs of flawless wear, but I guess that if you're expectations are low and all you're looking for is a night out look, then you might be happy with it. What do you think - would you give this a go?