Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Lady Luck swatch and first successful tape mani

     As you may have seen in one of my posts a while back I failed miserably at my first tape mani.  I did try a second time and pretty much the same thing happened.  I decided not to do tape manis anymore until I saw a few blogs talking about how to successfully accomplish a tape mani.  Let me tell you, I can't believe the difference it made.  But I can show you, he he. :-)
     The first two times I did a tape mani all I knew was to make sure the base coat was dry and apply tape.  Well, there are a few more steps to this process.

  • MAKE SURE your base coat is COMPLETELY dry.  If you can't wait for the polish to dry use a quick drying top coat like Sesche Vite, OPI Rapidry, or Out the Door.  
  • Stick the tape to the back of your hand a few times to make the tape less sticky.  If you don't do this the base color will be pulled up when you take the tape off and you will be very upset.
  • Work with one nail at a time.  Apply tape to nail in the desired pattern, apply color, and immediately remove the tape.  If you wait for the polish to dry the tape will get stuck to the nail and again you will be very upset.  
     In my first attempts I applied the tape full sticky strength to all my nails, then applied the polish, then waited for the polish to dry, then attempted to remove the tape.  Click the link in the first sentence if you want to see how your mani will turn out.
     After all that is said, I didn't really like the end result.  I think I would have enjoyed it more with out the dots in the middle.  I did however get a lot of complements on this so at least other people liked it.  :-)



 Lady Luck outside with no flash


 Lady Luck in side with no flash


Lady Luck inside with flash


Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Smooth Beginnings from Avon
Base color: Lady Luck from Wet N' Wild - 2 coats
Overlay color: Let's Talk from Sinful Colors - 1 coat
Black dots: Acrylic paint applied with a dotting tool
Top Coat: Rapidry from OPI

Have you tried any tape manis?  Have you wanted to scream at the top of your lungs?

I LOVE hearing from my readers, weather it be constructive criticism, complements, ideas, anything, please talk to me in the comments!  I will reply and I read each and every comment.