Week 2: Tape Manicure

Hey everyone!

Today I am going to show you a new nail art technique. Just as the name of this manicure sounds, it uses tape to make interesting designs.  It can be time consuming, but gets easier the more you do it.  Look below to see my tape manicure!

So, for this manicure I started with a base coat. I used Seche Natural as a base coat followed by Revlon Touch of Mauve.  After both of these were completely dry, I added my Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.  I waited about 10 min for all of this to dry completely. 

After the bottom colors are dry, I took some scotch tape. I taped it to my arm about 3 times and removed it so that it wasn't quite so sticky. I used my nail scissors to cut it into strips in the design I liked and placed it on my nail.  

 After it was on my nail, I simply painted on my top color.  For this, it is best to use a color that gets full coverage in one coat.  I used Orly Purple Velvet, which is actually a matte color.  I bought this color about 2 years ago, but have only used it one other time because I found that when you have a matte dark purple color on your nails by itself, it just looks like you accidentally closed your hand in the car door and your nails are black and blue.  BUT, as a top coat, the contrast to the shiny bottom pink color looked nice! 

After you paint this on, you need to remove the tape quickly. If you let the top color dry before taking off the tape, it will tear the color off.

My original idea was to use a matte top coat instead of the two colors to make my design shiny and matte. I know that Essie makes a matte top coat called "Matte about you" that will make any color you put under it matte. I looked everywhere for this and was unable to find it. What I did find was a Seche base coat called Seche Natural.  I thought that if I just used this as a top coat it would make the polish matte, but as you can see form the picture above, it didn't really work.

Anyway, this is a good way to make nail art with straight lines if you don't have a steady hand.  Do you think you will rock a tape manicure? If you do, send me pics!