Marie Claire's Ciate duo

Hello you gorgous girls!

This  month's issue of Marie Claire brings the wonderous freebie of Ciate's new Caviar collection. I couldn't resist it and had to get myself an issue and try it out.

It comes with a beautiful mink colour called Shooting Star for the base coat, and then a pink / golden selection of Caviar pearls in Cookies and Cream.  Its such a stunning combination; I thought this would be the perfect manicure which screamed glamour.

Ciate - Shooting Star - The colour of this nail varnish was beautiful.  It dried so so quickly and I built it up to three nails to create a matt colour though one coat left your nails with a very natural shine.

Ciate - Cookies and Cream - Then it comes to the pearls. I have never used pearls on a manicure before so I read the back to see what to do, I couldn't find any instructions of applicator so kind of just poured it onto my nail.  Most the bottle ended up on the floor and because the nail varnish is so great at drying my pearls weren't really all over the nail.  

I made such a mess I decided to do just one nail as I couldn't really see a easy way of applying it.  Using the mink brush would get all pearls in that pot too which I didn't want to do and pouring it seemed so ridiculous.  

Maybe I'm really dumb but I'd love to know if there's a trick to doing it as I can imagine in the right hands it would create a really beautiful look.  

Have you guys bought Marie Claire for this Ciate gift like I did? What were your experiences?