DIY Caviar Nails

I've seen a few how-to's/reviews for the "Caviar" nail trend and naturally wanted to give it a go for myself. Sephora sells the kits for them, which cost $25. I definitely didn't need to invest that much in a silly little trend, so I just went and bought some microbeads from Michaels (Recollections brand, you can use any kind, Martha Stewart makes them as well) and got to work! See below for my steps...

1. Gather your supplies

Base coat, top coat, any nail polish (I went with a lighter neutral since I was using lighter beads), microbeads, and a small tupperware or plastic cup/bowl.

2. Pour beads into plastic container 

Make sure there's enough in there to dunk your whole finger in

3. Paint nails with one fairly thick coat of nail polish and then dunk!

I made sure there was enough polish on each nail and then let it dry for just a few seconds before putting it in the bowl. I kind of rolled my nail in the beads to make sure it covered the whole surface and then tapped my nail against the beads to set them in place

4. Clean up nails and remove excess beads

You might want to use an orangewood stick or toothpick to tap down the beads and remove any excess from the top and sides of the nails. (I decided to do an accent nail so I could try out two colors at the same time)

5. Seal with top coat on the tips

I dabbed top coat along the top of my nails to seal those beads in and keep them from popping off. I tried putting top coat on a full nail, but didn't like how it made my nail look. In reality, that would have helped them stay on longer, but I cared more about looks than longevity ;)

Conclusion

Pretty easy to do overall, and totally fun to look at. For the first 3 hours. Then I started losing some and by that night they already weren't looking great. So I scraped off all the beads and was pleasantly surprised with the shimmery/dotted effect that was left behind (see below). I'm still glad I tried it and think it would be fun to try it with the black beads (maybe just on one nail) for a fun night out look, but they definitely aren't practical if you plan on using your fingers for anything more than just sitting there. So there you go! Let me know if you decide to give this look a go and how it turns out for you!

Fun Fact: My first blog post (after the introduction) was a DIY post on my own fun take of this a while back. You can check it out here :)

Happy weekend friends!

xoxo

Sara B