December 23, 2011
I have to admit I have mixed opinions on these water decals--mainly because this is my first real attempt at working with water decals. For those of you with no experience like me, take your time, have patience, and practice! One thing I love is they don't leave the 'lip/ledge" stickers do. In addition, the
Born Pretty Store's print/designs are beautiful!!!! They sure do make a beautiful french tip!
All you have to do is cut the decal to fit your nail, dip it in water for 20 seconds, and remove the decal from the backing with tweezers and stick on the nail. (After trial and error and talking with my polish friends, it helps to add a drop of water to your nail bed to help the decal slide around). Once you have the decal in place, you soak up the excess water with a paper towel. Finally, seal with a top coat. (You can also start with a regular polish as your base coat if you chose).
Sounds easy right.... Well.... I add a difficult time applying these decals. I tried to apply these several times, and these photos show my best attempt. First, I tried applying them with NO base coat or polish, and I could not get the water decal to stay in place. It just slide around and never dried to the nail. (which I later found out that this is a good thing. All I needed to do was soak up the excess water with a paper towel... duh! How stupid of me)
Then I tried applying a clear base coat, but the decal quickly adhered to my nail bed.. So quickly I could not get the placement right. (But later I found out from my polish friends, that all I needed to do was add a drop of water to my nail bed to help the decal slide around to get the placement right...duh.. how stupid of me)
Finally after talking to my Facebook polish group, I finally got it right... However, my top coat seem to "eat" the decal. You can see what I am talking about in the photos. I think this is either because I didn't allow the decal to dry all the way or that I didn't have enough polish on my brush...
I hope you can learn from my mistakes if you decide to try these water decals. I know the next time I try these, I will have the perfect french tip!
Step 1: Cut to size.
Step 2: Soak in water for 20 seconds. Remove decal from backing.
Step 3: Place on the nail and press with a paper towel to absorb the excess water. The extra flap of decal easily tears of similarly to the Sally Hansen Nail Decals.
As you can see, I messed it up... But I learned a lot in the process... Next time will be better! Practice makes perfect! The photos show one coat of top coat.
