Fast Frenchie

Well, it's Monday again, and it's a bit of a bittersweet Monday for me. It's the first day of the 'study break' for Uni which means I don't have any lectures (yay!), but sadly my Great Uncle passed away last Wednesday and today was his funeral, so there isn't any stand-out, bright and shiny nail art for you. I went with a simple and classic French Manicure using BYS French White and OPI Barre My Soul.  

This tutorial kept popping up on the 'recommended videos' panel on the side of other nail art tutorial videos, and though I had my at-home french manicure down pat, this method actually saved me quite a bit of time and hassle trying to get the silly 'smile lines' right. The method I used to use was just to paint white on my tips roughly, and use a cotton bud (or 'que-tip' for you Americans...) in nail polish remover to freehanded-ly remove the polish til it got to a line that I was happy with. There were a couple of problems with this, though the results were pretty great. Firstly, I always felt like I was wasting polish because I'd paint it on just to remove half of it straight away, and secondly it took a lot of fixing and going back to try and get all the lines the same thickness and the same curve and just uniform. Not to mention if I slipped and took too much off, I'd have to start the whole nail over again. Ridiculously frustrating, I can tell you. The time and patience required meant as much as I love the look, I simply couldn't be bothered french manicuring my tips very often. 

Now, the new method! In the video the girl sticks the tape onto the polish bottle top and cuts it from there. Turns out I'm useless at cutting a smooth curve in tape while it's stuck to something so 3D, so I adapted it and made myself a little template instead. I drew around the lid of my nail polish remover bottle on a little piece of card, and trimmed it off in the curve. 

I used my bottle lid instead of a polish bottle because I like a bigger, more gradual curve for my smile lines.  

Now I just get a piece of tape, make it tacky (stick it onto the back of my hand and pull it off, repeat - it takes some of the stickiness away and makes it easier to peel off the nail without it taking the base coat with it!), stick it on my cardboard template, cut the curve, and voila, I have my curved piece of tape. This makes the curve on every nail the same - just how I like 'em! I still need to do a teeny clean up with my cotton bud but it's no where near the mission it used to be without the tape.

When I'm happy with my lines, I top it off with two coats of Barre My Soul from the OPI NYC Ballet collection. This is the perfect french 'pink' as it's very sheer and not too pinky. It also takes the edge off the WHITE tips, which I've never really been a fan of. It's so lovely and glossy and just makes it all smooth. A top coat of Seche Vite seals everything in. 

What method do you use for your at home french mani? Do you put the pink over the white or underneath it? Enjoy your week, lovely people, see you again soon =D.

- Ally xx