How many of us have been drooling over the chic-ness of the metallic Minx manicure since it debuted a few years back?

Being someone who loves metals, I’ve been dying to get my hands on one – well, get one on my hands, really – for ages.  But the $40+ pricetag (for a set of nails that barely lasts 2 weeks) has been a big deterrent.

Now, Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips have been out awhile in drugstores here in the U.S. – but though there are glitters there are no true metals offered in the line.:-(  So I was on the hunt for something similar – that could mimic that Minx look for less.

Enter Nail Rocks Nail Wraps (for a mere $11.55 from ASOS.com).  (And with Free Shipping to the U.S. too – how about that?)  With a little fiddling (and a home hairdryer) that gorgeous liquid metal manicure can be yours for a fraction of the cost. Here’s how to use them:

You Need:

*Nail Rocks sheet (there are 24 “stickers” per sheet – enough for 2 full manicures)

*nail buffer

*orange stick

*nail scissors (not pictured – these are super-important!!!)

*hair dryer

*nail file (optional)

How To Apply Nail Rocks:

1. Make sure your nails are free of nail polish and are filed to the shape you want.  Use your buffer to buff the surface of your nails matte, so all shine is gone.

2. Pick a Nail Wrap that is about the same shape as your nail (at the cuticle).  Peel it off the backing (it’s just like a sticker, but thicker, than the Sally Hansen Salon Effects, and reminiscent of thin sheets of embossing metal, just not sharp).

See how the sticker is only stuck to one side of my nail?

Place the sticker onto your nail, matching the side of the rounded part with your cuticle.  Press lightly on one side of your nail only.

3. Hit that side with a blast of heat from your hair dryer – -maybe only about 3-5 seconds or so until the wrap softens.  You don’t need a lot of heat – don’t burn yourself!!

4. Immediately use your orange sticks to press the sticker hard onto that side of your nail, rubbing the orange stick back and forth firmly over the area to affix it.  If you wait too long the glue will firm up again and won’t adhere – if it does, blast it with the dryer again.

5. Repeat for the other side of your nail – and if the sticker overlaps your skin at all on the other side, use a pair of small scissors to trim it to the correct shape before applying heat.

Don’t pull or stretch the sticker over the other side of the nail, just smooth it with your finger onto your nail bed and then heat.  (If you mess up and there’s a ridge or fold in the sticker, don’t pull off the part that has been heated and stuck to your nail already, though the instructions say you can do that…I found that the stickers I did that to, fell off after 2 days of wear because I guess the glue had been weakened.  Fix the ridges before applying heat, and don’t ever peel off the full sticker to reposition it or something after you’ve heated it.)

6. Once the sticker is attached to your nail, use the scissors to trim off the excess close to where your natural nail ends.  (The instructions don’t say to do this – I found this was the only way to get the ends looking clean!  The instructions say to use a nail file in a downward motion to saw off the excess – pretty much the same as with the Sally Hansen stickers – but being that these are thicker and metal…it doesn’t work and shreds the stickers horribly.  You can’t even file the stickers downwards as the file shears off the metallic layer – and your natural nails with it.)

See how the sawing deforms the end of the sticker?

Trust me: CUT.)

This took an insane amount of sawing, and damaged the end of my natural nail.>:(

7. Blast the end of your nail with the hair dryer until the sticker is soft, and press it firmly onto your nail end.  Use the scissors to trim off any overhang (and that’s surprisingly easy to do if your angle your scissors about 45 degrees off your nail bed and carefully snip at the excess…the blades will catch the sticker and not your real nail, and you can pare off the layer that way.)

8. Repeat for the rest of your nails.

9. Once you have a full set, go back with the hair dryer and orange stick and heat and press any areas that aren’t stuck tightly or that look like air bubbles.  (Especially near the sides and ends.)

And voila!  (Budget about an hour for the fiddly nature of applying these – but once on, they look amazing!)  Disco-fabulous for a discount; now that’s my cup of tea!

Nail Rocks Metallic Nail Wraps ($11.55 for either Gold or Silver)

Nail Rocks Animal Print Nail Wraps ($11.55 for either Gold Leopard or Pink Snakeskin)

Nail Rocks Twin Pack ($17.67 for one pack each of the Gold Metallic and the Gold Leopard) – this is the one I bought.

They remained perfect for just over a week – and I swear, everywhere I went and everyone who I crossed paths with, commented on my nails! From an older guy sitting next to me at Starbucks: “How did you chrome your nails?” to the cashier at Hallmark while I was doing a return “I love your nails!” to the lady at Sbarro “Cool nails!” – it seems they really caught people’s attention!  I did notice some bubbling or lifting in certain areas of the nail, so I just re-applied heat with the dryer and pressed firmly again to re-seal them.  As the week wore on, I saw that signs of wear were occurring at the tips: just like nailpolish chips, these stickers were “chipping” at the tips, revealing the white beneath the metal surface.  It wasn’t too obvious, but I wanted to see how they would remove.

How to Remove Nail Rocks:

Very easily!;-)

1. Hit the entire sticker on one nail with the heat of a hairdryer, in much the same way as you applied them.

2. Peel off.

That’s it!

The stickers leave an ugly gray gluey residue on the nails, so you have to rub that off, but otherwise my nails seemed completely undamaged by these wraps.

I totally love these and can’t wait to try my Animal Print next!

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How about you guys?  Have you ever tried these Nail Rocks Nail Wraps before?  Do they look like something you might experiment with?

xoxox
Carly

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