Sally Hansen Nail Strips

I am a big fan of manicures, all different colors of nail polish and trying out new designs on my fingers.  I love the look of acrylic nails, but hate the time and money spent on the up-keep on them...not to mention the horrible damage they leave on your nails when you take them off.

These days, I rarely have the motivation or money to go to the nail salon for manicures.  Instead I do my best at home to keep clean, trimmed, buffed and sometimes painted nails.  I say sometimes because I have rarely kept up with nail color on my fingers the last few years because my job as a server.  When I happen to have a few days off in a row I love to take advantage of not having to wash my hands 400 times a day by applying a fresh coat of nail polish or using my new favorite find,
Sally Hansen Nail Strips.

For this post, I decided to stick to the basic every day nail color of Cry Baby to show that not all of the strip shades are crazy, fashion forward.  After trying the strips for myself, I've decided that I the solid every day colors are great, but I would love to experiment more with fun prints next time...

The nail strips come in 3 different collections.
 Shiny Neons: screams every day, but "notice me" colors including Cry Baby.

High-Shine Metallics: shine, sparkle & shimmer with colors like Bling It On.

High-Fashion Patterns: wild & fun stripes, shapes and animal prints like Laced Up.

cost: $9.99, unless you can find it cheaper online.
where to buy: any chain drug store, food store, or mass merchandiser.

Each box comes with 16 nail strips in different sizes, a wooden cuticle stick and a nail file/softener.

To apply nail strips: First you need to prep your nails.  Push back cuticles with the wooden stick.

Shape the edge of your nail with the hot pink side of file.

Gently smooth surface of nails with white side of file.

Give nails one last swipe of nail polish remover to remove any excess dirt & oil.  (This step is the most important to make sure your manicure last as long as possible!)  Make sure there is no nail polish creamy or oily residue left behind.  I used a Beauty Secrets Non-Acetone nail polish remover I got at Sally's Beauty Supply a while ago...it's almost gone but I'll probably replace it with the same bottle, it works great!

Now that your nails are prepped its time to apply the color.
STEP 1: SELECT.  Select the best-fitting strip for each nail.

STEP 2: PEEL.  Remove clear protective plastic cover, then peel nail polish strip from backing paper.

3.  BREAK.  Choose the side of the strip that best fits the shape of your cuticles, then break the silver tab from strip.

4.  APPLY.  Place strip against cuticle line, and hold strip at the center for maximum control.

Press strip to nail.  Gently stretch strip for a perfect fit.
*TIP:  Avoid over-stretching patterns. 
Firmly smooth over entire nail.  Run flat side of cuticle stick along edge of strip to firmly bond strip to nail.

5. SHAPE.  Smooth excess over nail edge, forming a crease around the edge of the nail.  Gently file away excess from nail edge using light pink side of file.  *TIP:  This step is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for metallic designs.

Repeat steps 2-5 for each nail, applying the thumb strip last.

*TIP: To remove strips, use nail polish remover.

It may seem like a lot of steps when you're reading this...but I promise you that this process takes less than 10 minutes!  I like using these strips for when I going out of town because the color lasts longer than normal nail polish.  I love that there's really not much room for error and that the strips result in clean lines on every nail.

But next time, I'm anxious to try out some of the more fashionable colors.  Here are some of my favs:

Color: Glitz Blitz

Color: Cut It Out

Color: Misbehaved

More Sally Hansen Nail Strips posts to come!!! :)