I rarely win anything, the only thing I actually remember winning is a juicebox in school many many years ago, that’s about it really.

And now, about a week ago, by tweeting a little message I won a nailcare package provided by HetCosmeticahuis.nl of the British high-end nailpolish brand Ciaté! Can you imagine, a nailpolish nut like me, winning nailpolish and all kinds of awesome other items? I was over the moon I tell you!

Right away I got a sweet private message from Cosmetica Huis telling me I could pick a color and they’d send out the package right away.

That was a tough one, Ciaté has 40 seriously amazing colors.  I first wanted to go for my standard go to color; purple. However, I found myself looking at all the wonderful colors this brand has and I opted for a cream style green called ‘Stiletto’. I like green on my nails, somehow it seems to go really well with my pale skin tone and I didn’t have a nice rich sap green like this yet. I already spotted a nice dupe for this color – Starboard from the Anchors Away collection by China Glaze – but since I don’t own this color either I decided to go for the Ciaté one.

Read on to see what my experience with this brand was and of course to see more pictures…

The package arrived two days later and I was just really pleasantly surprised because not only did I win the polish;  I had also won a rhinestone wheel with the most adorable little 1mm multicolored rhinestones, a nailpolish remover in a glass bottle which had an adorable matching bow, a nail file and cuticle care cream!

I started with a nice coat of my favorite nail hardener by Orly called ‘Naitrition’ which I’ve mentioned on this blog before then put on two coats of Stiletto. One coat was a bit too sheer for my taste, but two coats did the trick. I liked the brush, it has 250 hairs and it’s slightly oval so it takes good care of your coverage.

The bottle promises that it contains a long lasting full coverage nail enamel so I was going to test this out for sure.

I was sad to discover that a few bits of the polish had chipped off by the end of the first day. All of them were along the free edge of my nails, though not all nails were affected and I wondered if it could be the fault of the basecoat I had used. Maybe I should use a Ciaté base coat or possibly not just a nail hardener.

Four days after that sad discovery the chips were, of course, still there.  I did not cover them to see what would happen and honestly, no more had appeared and the chips that did occur before hadn’t become any larger. So all in all, I am very very happy about the staying power of this polish and I think that if I had used a different basecoat and topcoat I would have had completely perfect nails through day five.

During the time I wore my polish I started to use the nice jar of  Miss Rich Nail Growth Promoting Balm with Biotin that came with the package. On the jar it says the following: “An active Balm enriched with Biotin for its nail strengthening properties. Contains Shea Butter infused with Apricot Kernel, Jojoba and Kukui Oil. These natural ingredients deeply condition and protect nails and cuticles from free radicals.” It smells very sweet but it is not overwhelming. So far I’ve really enjoyed the cream but I since I already religiously use my L’Occitane handcreams daily I didn’t feel it was making my hands any softer than they were already so I feel I can’t review this honestly. It is lovely though, nothing wrong with it at all.

When I decided to take off the polish I used the special remover that came with the prize package. Now let me tell you, next to the pretty polish this is my favorite product of the package. You see, when I first got it I spotted that on the front of the bottle it says White Chocolate Gentle and Nourishing Nail Polish Remover which of course made me, a big fan of anything chocolate, very curious. It even says so on the bottle: “A gentle nourishing nail polish remover with a non-drying formulation enriched with Panthenol (vitamin B5) and Vitamin E. Delicately fragranced with White chocolate essence.” So I untwisted the cap and took a whiff of it and made a face because, yuck, it smelled just as strong and non chocolaty like all the other regular removers I have used before. I put it aside and kind of forgot about it until I thought it was time to take off the polish. I decided to use the Ciaté remover and poured a little bit of it in a tiny cap and stuck my finger in it to soak off the polish like I always do. After about thirty seconds I was able to whipe it all off my nailplate with a tissue with one whipe and oh my goodness, there it was – once my finger dried – the gorgeous scent of creamy, yummy, delicious chocolate! I had only tried one other scented nail polish remover before that smelled this good and that’s the strawberry one by Konad.  However, this one, ladies and gentlemen, takes the cake! If you ever want to spoil yourself you need to order this nailpolish remover as soon as you can!

Besides all these things I also got a lovely wheel filled with 1 mm rhinestones in all kinds of pretty colors and a nailfile for soft/weak nails that I have yet to try.

All in all my first experience with the Ciaté brand, AND the hetcosmeticahuis.nl webshop was quite a pleasant one! I am looking forward to buying some polish colors and more nailcare products by this company. It might take a while before I do this because this is a high end brand and their products are quite pricey as you can see here in the list of products I received in this give-away:

• €15,49 Miss Rich Nail Growth Promoting Balm with Biotin
• €17,99 White Chocolate Gentle and Nourishing Nail Polish Remover
•  €11,99 Ciaté – Stiletto – 13.5ml – Creme
• € 3,99 Ciaté – File for soft/weak nails

Alas the rhinestone wheel that I also received with the set is not for sale at the shop so I cannot tell you how much it costs or where you can order it.