Ciaté Mini Mani Month

I've finally got round to doing the Ciaté Mini Mani Month review! Yaaaaay! Sorry about the huge delay with this post, it was originally due to be published on Christmas Eve, but I’ve been so disgustingly ill over the last month or so that I’ve been struggling to get myself dressed let alone write such a lengthy post! I’m currently taking antibiotics for a throat infection so all should be well, and posts back to normal, this week!

So if you haven’t seen my original post about the Ciaté calendar you can view it HERE, but I’ll still give a brief description of the products mentioned in that post, in this one as well. I’ve tried to break the varnishes up into sections (top coats, pastels, nail effects etc.) to try and break the post down a bit because there is a lot to get through!

Starting with the third image down, we have the sparkly top coats that came in the Mini Mani calendar. From left to right they are: Meet Me in Mayfair which is a black and white confetti style top coat with splashes of silver and pastel colour mixed in, next is Tinsel Town which is a peachy pink glitter with a bit of green and blue thrown in, the final glitter top coat shown in the picture is Glitterball, this is possibly one of my favourite mini manis as it’s just pure pink glitter! The glitter size ranges from quite a large, sequin glitter to a super small shimmer and looks fab over a nude varnish! 

There was also another glitter top coat called Confetti which is a hologram, silver glitter. For some reason I decided not to photograph this one but you can see it in the original post HERE.

Underneath we have the pastel varnishes. From left to right they are Pillow Fight – a lilac/grey colour, Amazing Gracie – a super pastel pink, Pepperminty – yep you guessed it, it’s a peppermint colour! Followed by Raincoat – think Burberry Mac colour, Sugar Plum – a fairy princess purple and finally there’s Members Only which a nude pink with a little shimmer to it.

Next are the nail effects, to use these you paint a coat of varnish on your nail and sprinkle some of these effects on top, alternatively you can pour some onto a piece of paper and roll your wet nail into it gently. Left to right: we have Jingle Belle which is a sparkly pink fairy dust, Ring Master – multi-coloured sequins, Christmas Tree – is a multi-coloured nail caviar and finally Miss Mistletoe is a mix of sunset coloured sequins!

Below them we have the cool shades. First up is Boom Box – a really bright electric blue, in the middle is Fit for a Queen – a solid, silver shimmer varnish and on the right is Power Dressing – a deep royal blue shade.

Next there are the warm colours, of which there are many, yay! From left to right: Access all Areas – a matte varnish in a bright highlighter orange shade, Boudoir – think Mac ‘Russian Red’ lippy colour, Encore – a burnt orange, Big Yellow Taxi – guess what that’s the colour of? And finally we have Hopscotch – a similar colour to Access all Areas, but slightly darker and not matte.

Last but certainly not least are the essential top coats! I would always suggest using base and top coats whenever painting your nail, it makes varnish removal easier, helps you avoid nail staining and is also a lot better for your nails and the surrounding skin. Ciaté’s top and base coats are definitely worth investing in as they are a really good quality, help make your nail varnish last and the actual bottles themselves last you quite a while! 

In the mini mani calendar I got the Suspension Top Coat – good for mixing nail affects into to create a textured look. There was also the Speed Coat which will help any slow drying nail varnish to solidify in just 60 seconds – what’s not to love!?

I’m absolutely over the moon with all the fab little varnishes I got in the Ciate Mini Mani calendar and can’t believe how much of a bargain it was! I hope you enjoy this post even though it was more of a list than an actual review! I hope it’s given you some nailspiration regardless!

Which is your favourite varnish from the Mini Mani collection? Did you get any unusual advent calendars? Let me know in a comment below!