Nail art alert! Save a chipping manicure with fun and funky French tips

Before I even begin to give you the play-by-play of how to do this mani, let me tell you why you MUST try this. It is for one reason, and one reason alone:

This is the ultimate way to save a week-old chipped manicure.

I don’t know how many of you out there are like me, but once my nail polish starts to chip, that’s the end of the road for that manicure. Say bye-bye! So, this nail art is the ultimate savior for leaving a base colour on for an extra week.

What You Need

• Scotch tape
• Base colour (if you are starting from scratch—I used Revlon Colorstay Nail Polish in Midnight)
• Colour for the tips/triangles (I used Sephora by OPI Nail Polish in Already Famous)
• Base and top coat

Step One

As always, use your favourite base coat. I have a feeling this step is going to get a tad repetitive as I give you ladies more “how-tos,” so never forget: always use a base coat unless told otherwise. And I will never tell you otherwise. I use Sally Hansen Miracle Cure Strengthener.

Step Two

Paint your nails with the base colour you want. If you are testing this nail art over a chipped manicure, then you head straight to step three! If you are starting fresh, you have to wait at least a half hour (ugh, I know) before the next step. Otherwise, the tape will just rip all your hard work right off!

Step Three

Place the scotch tape upon your nail as shown above.

Pro Tip: To get a perfect equilateral triangle, and not that weird slanty scalene one (woah, hello grade school math), I like to pretend my nails are perfectly rectangular. Essentially, I imagine that my cuticles aren’t actually round, but rather are straight across.

You want the diagonal of each piece of tape to connect from the tip of your nail, to the opposite corner of your imaginary rectangle, like above!

Step Four

Paint your triangle tips with the gold polish (or any colour of your choice) right on top of the tape. You can paint all the nails first then take off the tape, or rip away the tape after each nail. Doesn’t really matter!

Step Five

Apply that top coat of yours (I like Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat) aaannnd you’re done!

Funky, right?! You’ve either:

Created an awesome twist on the plain-Jane French manicure,

OR

Saved an old chipping manicure!

If you want to amp it up even more, you can add some sparkle.

After returning from Las Vegas, I have found myself on a sparkle binge. Regardless of my return to Toronto, sparkles on everything seems appropriate because if there wasn’t some type of glitter within your eyesight at Vegas, something was wrong. Ergo, I added some glitz to my manicure with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Polish in Strobe Light. (Wow, quite the mouthful). But also, quite the sparkle!

Good luck, and I hope you nail it!

Rikki Ciminsky is a student at Ryerson University in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @rikki_see.

What do you think of this twist on the French mani?
Will you be attempting this DIY at home?
What kind of nail art tutorial would you like to see next?