My lovely friends Louise and Matt got me some nail art materials for my birthday, including a Nail Rock set with caviar beads in Neptune.  It includes a polish in a lovely green shade and a pot of beads in electric pink and teal. If you’ve never seen a caviar manicure it is tiny beads set on to the nail using polish or glue to give a 3D textured effect.

A full set of 10 nails would have been a bit much I’m and rarely one to have all my nails the same anyway. I also used American Apparel polish in Neon Violet and Essie No Place Like Chrome along with a couple of dotting tools.

After a base coat of OPI Nail Envy, I added 2 coats each of the two colours sandwiching some Sally Hansen Hard As Wraps.  While the second coat of the Nail Rock green was still wet, you press your nail into the pot of beads and then press the beads firmly into the polish – you’ll then need a bit of patience for the polish to completely dry –  10-15 minutes.

I used the dotting tools (large, medium and small) to add some detail on to the violet nails.  Using the silver polish and the largest dotter I added a few spots to each nail.  With the medium dotting tool I then added more spots in the green with some overlapping the silver. Then with the smallest dotter I added a few more spots in silver.

I added Seche Vite to the violet nails to seal the colour and a quick dry.

So here’s the finished product! Caviar beads are known for being a short-term decoration – the texture means they catch easily and can pull off really easily. You could use nail glue instead of polish to stick them to the nail.  I ended up adding a topcoat but it muted the colours a little bit.  However, they are definitely staying put so I think it’s worth it if you aren’t doing caviar nails for a special night out.  I think I might go with nail glue next time though – it should keep the colours bright and won’t impact the 3D effect the way a top coat does.

Here’s a comparison of the before and after topcoat.  You can see the beads are a bit more silvery and muted in colour after.