Friday, January 4, 2013

Candy Cane Nails: Better Late Than Never!

Hey Guys!

I know that the holidays are over, but I still wanted to show you one of my first experiences with striping tape.  I tried this look after seeing Jen The Polishaholic's tutorial for candy cane nails here.  I have been following her blog for a while now and I am always so impressed with her swatches and amazing nail art posts!

For this look, I started off with a base of two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  This is the perfect slightly-greyed off-white color.  It doesn't look chalky, and it applies pretty evenly in two coats, which is amazing for a white polish!  Once the white base was completely dry, I laid down a combination of striping tape for the thinner lines and regular scotch tape for the larger white areas where I wanted the lines to be.  Next, I used one coat of OPI An Affair in Red Square over the nail and striping tape.  Immediately after applying the red polish, I pulled off the tape to get the crisp, clean lines.  

Here's how the mani came out after cleanup.  The photos below were taken indoors in artificial light and were taken before top coat was applied.

Right Hand 


Left Hand



One rookie mistake I made was applying top coat too soon (even though I swear I waited almost two hours!).  Applying top coat too early makes the colors run when using striping tape, even if the polish feels dry to the touch.  As you can see, this happened on my pinky on my left hand.  I actually waited until the next day to apply top coat to the rest of my nails to avoid having the colors bleed like that.  I know my nails don't look perfect in the images above, but I think the manicure came out pretty well for a first attempt, and you can't see the mistakes as obviously in person.

I really love this look because 
1) it's so festive and fun! 
2) it's only slightly time consuming (perfect for a study break) and 
3) it's not difficult to do, even for a nail art rookie like me!

So what do you guys think?  Did you do any fun holiday manicures? 



6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks, Susan! Also, thank you for being the first one to comment on my blog, it truly means a lot =)

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  2. This is sooo pretty!!
    I love the combo of red and white and especially in stipes!
    Good job!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! It was actually pretty easy to do.. I love striping tape haha. Have you tried any looks with it?

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  3. These are SO clean and crisp! Gorgeous job!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! Can't go wrong with striping tape haha it definitely took a while but the results were so worth it!

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