Manicure Trick – Wrap Your Tips
Much like wrapping the perfect present, a flawless, long lasting manicure requires a little wrapping of its own. Wrapping the free edge of your nail with polish helps extend the wear of your manicure and should become an essential step in your routine.
I’m sure most professional nail techs consider this part of their everyday manicure service but it’s not as well known in the consumer world. Since we discussed this technique in the comments of my Quirius review, and there were multiple requests for details, I figured a quick tutorial was in order. Read on to see my step-by-step guide to wrapping your tips and get a look at one of American Apparel’s latest nail polish releases. It’s GREEN! |
Apparently I can’t get enough of teal, turquoise and aqua at the moment. As much as I try not to latch onto trends, you can only see so many gorg blue-green brights before getting sucked in. There are so many in my office right now that you’d swear I’m adopting a Caribbean theme. One of the shades I’ve been dying to try is from American Apparel’s Summer Collection called Malibu Green so I decided to use it for this tutorial.
Wrap Your Nail Edge
Step 1 – Apply base coat and first layer of nail polish as usual. Allow the lacquer to dry.
Step 2 – Wipe off your brush really well leaving a minimal amount polish on the bristles. Gently swipe the brush along the free edge of your nail getting a bit of polish just underneath the tip. You can hold the brush at a lower angle than seen here but because I don’t have three arms that was impossible to show.
You will end up with a small bead of polish along your edge (mine is exaggerated) but we will cover that up in Step 3.
Step 3 – Apply a second coat of polish while the bead is still wet so that it all blends together leaving a smooth surface. Some people may prefer to paint the free edge while the first layer is still wet but this is my preferred method.
If done correctly you will see a bit of polish under your nail. Again, mine is exaggerated in this example. You want to paint a very fine line on the edge using as little polish as possible.
Step 4 – Wrap your tip with top coat. Paint a thin line of top coat along the free edge first and then apply a layer to the entire nail.
Tip: When working with dark polishes, you should wrap your edge with base coat to prevent staining.
There you have it folks. A quick and easy trick you can add to your manicure routine to help extend polish wear.
Was this helpful? How many of you already wrap your nails? Do you even bother if you only plan to wear the color for a few days? Do you have any additional tips to add?
The American Apparel Summer colors are on sale now at AmericanApparel.com and I’ll be doing a full review of them soon.
Disclosure: A sample bottle of Malibu Green was furnished to me by American Apparel. For more info view my Disclosure Policy.
I want to say that I am a nail technician and the method you have shown isnt one that we use. Its actually a lot simplier than the one you have demostrated. If you see the polish under the nail then it is not done correctly. The polish should only be covered on the very very edge of the nail. Polish underneath the nail would not be very clean and neat. Good try though.
Hi J! Thanks for sharing. I mentioned in my post that my line at the edge was exaggerated so I don’t normally get that much polish under the tip of my nail when I wrap my tips however I’m certainly not a professional so I just showed the method I use. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
I wrap! I didn’t know it was called that though. I used to get manis but couldn’t figure out why those lasted longer than the ones I did at home. I noticed one day about a year ago that my manicurist did this. I’ve been doing it ever since. I usually change it up every couple of days but for those weeks when I’m extra busy & don’t have time for a polish change, this makes the polish last the whole week :]
Hi!
Just thought I’d let you know that I’ve been wrapping my tips for a while now and it definitely helps. I’ve been silly and wrapped AFTER the 2nd coat of poish but will now try it beforehand like you suggested. No more bumps!
Thanks
I must say, wrapping really prevented my nails from chipping for an entire week! wohoo!!
[...] All Lacquered Up shares a quick tip on how to make your manicure last longer. [...]
I need tips on how to do this with shorter nails. I make a horrible mess!
LOL, me too!! I always get the polish on my fingers.
Thanks for this tip. My manicurist actually shared it with me the last time I was in.
[...] your nail. Go ahead and open up a new internet tab and head on over to All Lacquered up again for a detailed description of this method. I’m not adept at this method because I like to keep my nails short. Short [...]
Hey, I saw some ladies requested the wrapping technique for those of us with shorter nails. I am thirding that! I can’t have nails past my finger-tips because I’m a vet tech and it would interfere terribly with my work. I keep a bit of free edge (despite this being strongly advised against at school), and I repaint about every 5 days or so (lacquer is a gray area in this profession for the medical staff, but like any office-work chips are a big no-no [would repaint more often but my schedule doesn't allow it]). So, I try to wrap the best I can but as aforementioned by other commenters I make a huge mess because my free edge doesn’t hang. I (and others it seems) would really, really appreciate any advice on the topic you have to offer. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for this post! I have been trying to figure out how to wrap my tips, and have been doing it kind of oddly, this ‘real’ way will be much easier! It seems so easy, but there are a LOT of other ways you can try it, and some of them are quite messy, lol. I second the idea of a method for those of us that have to have short nails. I would think this technique would sort of work, though it might require some cleanup. Other than that I would also think short nails might not wear on the tips as fast? I will have to test this theory when I start my new job and have to cut my nails down
I don’t bother to wrap the tips for two reasons. First, my nails are short, barely past the tips of my fingers. Second, I change polish every day.
[...] one massively busy day, I touched up the tips using wrapping technique, which I first learned about here, on All Laquered Up. To get rid of tipwear, start on step 2 and then do another [...]
[...] try is tip-wrapping, but I’ve never mastered the art of this so I’ll leave you with this link on how to do [...]
Thanks, this was helpful!
[...] Maak je nagels vetvrij 2. Maak je nagels zo hard mogelijk met een nagel verharder 3. Wrap your tips 4. Lak niet te dik, 2 dunne laagjes is genoeg 5. Een topcoat aanbrengen 6. Wees voorzichtig met [...]
Good info! Thanks for the pics too!