Review: MUA Constellation

I am a big fan all things nail-y, so when I heard that MUA were doing a dupe of the Ciate Caviar manicure for about a third of the price, I was so excited that I put the date in my diary.

Basically, 'MUA Constellations' are little pots with a sort of funnel at the top full of tiny beads which you sprinkle onto your nails whilst they are still wet. They are named 'constellations' because they come in 4 different colour combinations, all named after Star Signs. They cost £2.50 each.

I went for 'Pisces' (They didn't have Libra :( ) which is a mix of silver, green and pink beads. I can't link to the other colours as they are not on the Superdrug website (I just searched for MUA constellations and it said 'did you mean...constipation?' hahaha). I decided to just do an accent nail on each hand so I used Green Room from Topshop as the base for each accent nail, and Pastel Pink by Model's Own for the rest of my hand:

This was the result as soon as I had applied:

I really like the result, it's very eye catching although there are quite a few gaps as it was pretty hard to get the beads to fill every nook and cranny, and from far away it definitely looks better. I think I should have maybe applied a top coat (although the instructions on the bottle do not advise this). 

This was what my nail looked like late afternoon, after being at work all day:

So as you can see, A LOT of the beads have fallen off.

This was the result at about 8pm:

Not great, as you can see (and the pink has chipped, boo!). As well as most of the beads falling off, the remaining ones look all dull and dirty and silver spots have been left behind.

However, I still think this is quite a good product. Firstly, I don't know whether applying a top coat would have made the beads stay on a lot longer. Secondly, I do think it does look really effective when freshly applied, and thirdly, it is so cheap you can afford to experiment with different colours without breaking the bank. I haven't read any reviews of the Ciate original online so maybe the same thing happens with all bead manicures like this?

I will use this product again, but I think I will stick to applying it for a night out or something when I won't be using my hands as much, as it does give a wow factor.