Lucky for me I work in an office, so these reinforcement labels were not hard to come by.
Although I love the neon trend, I decided to go for a few different colors for an updated fall look.
The clear is OPI's Start to Finish, which doubles as a base and top coat. I always use a base coat for easy removal (and my nervous habit of picking my nail polish results in picking it off cleanly and faster). The blue and gray are both from the L'Oreal Color Riche collections. I really like these nail polishes over others like OPI, or Essie because the color is thick, so less time spent applying multiple coats of one color, and they go on pretty smooth also. The Blue is also a little brighter than shown, called "Jet Set to Paris" and the gray (my new fave) is Greycian Goddess.
1) First step is to dab lotion or Vaseline around your cuticle, a tip I also found on pinterest. This allows you to simply wipe off any mistakes and also moisturizes your cuticles! Two birds with one stone!
2) Now that your nails are prepped, you can go ahead and either paint the color you want on the majority of your nail, or, if you're going for the look pictured above, skip to step #4
For tips on how to paint your nail smoothly and evenly, check out this pin!
3) Now that you have your first coat of nail polish on, if necessary, apply a second coat to get the color that you want, or continue on. Allow your nails to dry completely! If you don't, you could really mess up all the work you've already done.
4) Once your nails are dry, we can start applying the reinforcement labels. An important tip to remember is to make the labels less sticky. I did this by sticking all 5 of the labels to the back of my hand, then before sticking them to my nail, used my finger to make the part that will be touching my nail less sticky.
5) Apply the label to your nail. I cut the ring so that there was more room for it to stretch a little and fit my nail a little better. Also, run a fingernail across the edge where you'll be painting, and push it into your cuticles at the edge of your nail to try and seal the label. In the many times that I have tried this, the edge is never exactly perfect, but that works best for me.
6) Paint the tip, being sure not to have too thick of a layer of paint. If your base coat color still shows through, you can always paint a second coat on your tips after they dry. A good tip here, is to remove the label shortly after you paint the tip. If you leave it on too long (which I thought was a good idea at first) the paint dries onto the label and once you peel it off, it leaves a weird mark.
7) Apply a few thick coats of top coat onto your nail to even out the thickness, and there you go! an inexpensive way to have a french manicure!
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