I was feeling pretty lazy with my nails this week and decided that I wanted a pale colour, that would paint on easily and wouldn't matter so much if I wasn't very neat with it. I went through a couple in my collection but after a couple of disasters, I realised that I hadn't yet shown you guys my favourite pale shade, Purple Sherbert by Ciaté. It made it into a favourites post last year, but as for showing it on the nails and talking about the formula in detail, I had yet to go there.


I got this particular shade of Ciaté's free with a copy of Marie Claire quite some time ago, and I have worn it a good three or four times since. Purple Sherbert is a pale lilac creme, that is a easy-to-wear, suitable-for-work shade. However, this time I felt it needed something else so I added a coat of Let Me Go by Sinful Colors. Let Me Go has a pearlescent finish, and as such it shines so many beautiful colours in the light; the main shade being lilac but there are also green, blue and copper shades too. It reminds me of iridescent cellophane - this combination has that same effect and it really is a unique finish, which is completely impossible to photograph! No matter how hard I tried I could not get this to show up on camera at all; rest assured that it looks much better in real life.


Purple Sherbert is surprisingly easy to apply, especially for a pastel shade. I still needed three coats for full opacity and each one did take a while to dry, but the formula was good and easy to work with. Let Me Go appears to be a opaque shade in the bottle, however once you take the brush out it is clear to see that it is very sheer indeed. I dread to think how many coats you would need to get it opaque, but applying one coat over a lilac shade gives you the effect that I imagine it would have. The brushes with both of these polishes are your standard fare but present no problems whatsoever. The price difference in these is pretty big but for such a cheap price, I was as impressed with the Sinful Colors shade as I was with Ciaté's and will definitely be looking for more when I'm next in Boots.

Ciaté Paint Pots can be purchased from their online store for £9 (Purple Sherbert is not available) and Sinful Colours can be purchased from Boots for £1.99.