Striping Tape Manicure Tutorial

You can do some amazing stuff with striping tape but it can be tricky to work with! I've been doing a lot of striping manicures recently so I thought I'd pass on a few tricks I've picked up in the process. You do need a healthy dose of patience and a steady hand but with a bit of practice, I think anyone can do it and the possibilities are literally endless.

Striping tape is crazy cheap and you can buy it from any number of places online. I find the cheapest place to purchase is eBay, just search for 'striping tape' and you'll get thousands of results. Obviously it's cheaper if you don't mind waiting a few weeks for delivery from China but even if you buy domestic, it's still cheap!

You'll need at least two nail polishes (mine are Tiger Lily from Primark and China Glaze Pink-ie Promise), a top coat, some tweezers, striping tape and a pair of scissors.

Start by painting your base colour and making sure it's completely dry before moving on the next step. I normally use a quick drying top coat (like Seche Vite) to speed up the process.

Snip small sections off the roll of striping tape to use on your nails. I do this by hanging a long length of it from my desk lamp, then gripping the end with my tweezers and snipping off about 1-2cm at a time.

I always use tweezers to handle the striping tape which make it soooo much easier! I honestly don't think I'd ever approach a striping manicure unless I was armed with a pair of tweezers.

I have these pointy ones which are great for nail art but regular tweezers will work too. You can buy the pointy ones on Amazon in the US and UK.

Place the tape in your pattern of choice on your nails and make sure it's smoothed down right to the edges or nail polish will seep underneath. Most importantly, make sure the tape carries on past your nail so you have space to grip and remove it later. 

Try to remember which order you applied them in! You'll see why later.

Paint your second colour over the top of the tape.

Here comes the tricky bit....

Immediately, while the top colour is still wet, remove the strips in REVERSE order to the way that you put them on so that you can pull each one off without it snagging on anything and potentially ruining all your hard work so far.

Finally, apply a top coat or two and once that's dry, you can use a small paintbrush dipped in acetone to clean up any mess that's left on your cuticles.

Like I said, the possibilities are endless! Just go crazy and see what happens.

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Write by: Unknown - Saturday, April 6, 2013