MUA nail constellations review and swatches of Gemini, Leo and Scorpio

The most exciting thing to happen to me this week was my MUA order being delivered - I think I need to get out more.  I was truly excited to get these as I never tried the caviar manicures that were out a while back as the price just seemed ridiculous.  The MUA nail constellations are just £3 each, so I bought three of the five colour choices available.

Gemini | Scorpio

Leo | All three - Leo, Scorpio, Gemini

From top to bottom on my hand - Scorpio, Leo, Gemini

I wanted to try these out as soon as they arrived, so I did one nail of each of the colours I got.  The first thing I noticed is that the colours are much nicer in real life than I was expected.  I'm annoyed that I didn't also buy the Pisces version as I picked that one up for my friend and it looked lovely whereas from looking at it online I thought I didn't need it as it seemed too similar to Gemini.  This is the full range below.

Applying the nail constellations was really easy.  You just apply any colour polish you like and then pour over the beads while the nail varnish is still wet so that they stick.  I had a little bowl to catch the excess beads and it was fairly easy to pour them back into the bottle as the lid doubles as a funnel.  I did lose some on the floor though - it can't be helped because they're just so teeny.  

I applied Scorprio (rainbow effect beads) over black, which I think made the colours really stand out.  I think this one is quite Christmassy and perhaps applying it over red would make it even more so.  

For Leo, which is made up of purple and turquoise beads, I applied a lilac base coat.  This makes the purple stand out more and I'm sure it would do the opposite with a turquoise or greeny base, which I think I'll try next.  

Gemini has lots of pretty pastel colours in it, but it's predominantly pink.  I applied it over a white base for the swatch but then when I decided to wear it out the following day I tried it over pink but I could hardly tell the difference.  

So this is how I wore Gemini to go to a party last night.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  My swatches from the night before had lost some beads by the morning, so I decided to try out adding a top coat.  I was a bit apprehensive about adding top coat and potentially ruining the nails I'd just done as I read another review which said that the top coat caused the beads to stick to the brush in a gloopy mess and to change colour.  Luckily though, I didn't have the same problem.  

In the second picture where you can see both of my hands, the hand underneath has topcoat on the constellation nails and the hand on top doesn't.  You can hardly see a difference other than that the nails with the top coat look a bit smoother.  I didn't get any colour change at all - perhaps this would happen with some of the deeper colourways?  Also I didn't have a problem applying the top coat so my tips would be to allow the nail constellations to dry into your base colour for a while before applying your top coat and then to apply a really generous layer so that the brush literally doesn't have to touch the beads.  That worked well for me.  

As for staying power, these are a one night wear kind of deal.  I expected that and I'm fine with it.  I did find that I needed to be quite careful with my nails when wearing these - I had a little incident when putting my jeans on that caused the beads on my index finger to scrape off.  The top coat and base colour had glued them all together so fortunately instead of having to start again I was able to smooth it back on to my nail and it actually stayed.  

Lots of people noticed my nails and asked about them while I was wearing Gemini, so I think they're going to be really popular.  I don't think you can go wrong for £3 either.  

You can get these from larger Superdrugs that stock the full MUA range and from muastore.co.uk

Which colour do you like best?

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