New Years Nails - Ciate Very Colourfoil Kit - Kaleidoscope Klash

Happy New Year! My first New Year's Resolution is to post on this blog more! And also to try and do a better job of keeping up with reading other blogs... I'm happy to report that my hand is mostly recovered... (story at the very end of this post) I can't quite straighten my middle finger yet but I can make a fist and more importantly I can do my normal nail poses again! So back to posting! I have a bunch of swatches from when my left hand was in a cast (I somehow managed to still paint my right hand with only my left index and left thumb... my friends and coworkers were very impressed :D) Anyway onto my New Year's Nails!

This mani was inspired by Rebecca Likes Nails I saw that post and loved the look! It took me forever to find the kit at Winners... I searched all 3 in my city for several months before finally finding it last week. I knew they would be perfect for New Years!

I didn't really practice before I used the foils. The kit comes with a practice nail wheel... I basically only did one test nail... once I figured out how to get the foil to peel off I figured I would just wing it on my nails. 

I started with 2 coats of OPI Black Onyx. Once that was dry, I applied the included nail foil glue, waited about a minute until the glue was clear (the glue should not be wet anymore but should still be sticky). I then applied one random color of foil and peeled it off. I found it worked best to put glue on all 5 nails on one hand, then apply all the foils on that hand, then repeat with the next hand. This allowed enough time for the glue to dry without any idle wait time. I went over each nail three times with different colors. Personally, I really don't like colors on my left thumb (red/gold/silver). I think my favorite color combination is the blue/silver/fuchsia (left middle and right ring).

Then I applied Color Club top coat (the one that came with my Color Club set... not sure what the top coat is called). The top coat unfortunately ruined the foils. It made them wrinkle, and took away from the finish. Before applying the top coat, you could actually see the pattern on the foil... after it just looks like a scrap of colored tin foil or something. You can see this especially on my left thumb below. From far away they still look nice but they look pretty bad up close / under a macro lens!

Apparently regular top coat doesn't work with foils. Rebecca Likes Nails did warn about this in her post, however I totally forgot about this in the 3 months it took me to find the kit. All Lacquered Up's post on the Ciate Very Colourfoil kit also mentioned that quick dry top coats cause wrinkling... ALU also suggested using a q-tip rather than your finger to apply the foils to your nails for smoother application... too bad I didn't read that before I tried out the foils. I researched after it didn't work so well to figure out what went wrong... lesson learned... next time research BEFORE trying a new technique! lol

Aside from wrinkling, the foils did not stay on very well at all. I think I need to get a special top coat for the foils. About half an hour after applying top coat, I washed my hands and a bunch of chunks came off. Then I went to bed and they were mostly okay after that... they did continue to flake over the next few days but it was much slower. The pictures above were taken the day after applying (so after the large chunks came off already)... the pictures below were taken three days after applying (2 days after the earlier pictures). You can see that a lot came off of my right index, the left side of my right middle finger, and on my left index. 

Have you ever tried foils before? Do you have any other tips? Which color combination is your favorite?