How to Do an Easy French Manicure

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Rachel and I'm a freelance fashion writer and the owner of Austin's Style watch dot com street fashion site. And today we are going to talk about how to do an easy French manicure. Now there are a lot of ways to do a French manicure and a lot of it depends on if you have a very steady hand or not, and what tools you have at hand. So we are going to explore one technique today for the person at home, it's very DIY. And we are even going to be making our own tape strips for it. So the first thing you are going to want to do is naturally remove all existing nail polish you have on your hands. And go ahead and trim and file your nails and just get them in good shape to have polish put on them. So we are going to get to actually make the French tip. Now a lot of people if you have a very steady hand can just naturally paint that white tip on yourself but for those of us that are a little shaky, and especially for those of us that are having to do the right hand with the left hand, having a guide really helps. So what we are going to do today is cut our own tape guides. You can go to a place like Sally Beauty supply or some Walgreens and CVS and they will have French tip strips, but a lot of places don't. So we are going to cut our own. And we are going to be using regular scotch tape and scissors. What you want to do is pull off a little piece of tape, just about the size of the upper half of your nail and then you are going to want to cut it in the same sort of arc shape that you would have your French tip shaped in. So just cutting it off in a sort of curved half moon shape. And then when you have that shape, cut it off the end, take it and stick it on to your nail. Now it's really important when you are sticking it on to your nail, to try to avoid air bubbles. Because those will screw up the manicure. After that you are going to want to go ahead and take your white polish, give it a little shake or roll to avoid air bubbles and paint over the strip you've left behind. Go ahead and let that dry, and once you've got it dry go ahead pull off the tape and you have a really nice straight French manicure line, not quite from the salon but about as close as you are going to get at home. Give it a couple of coats of clear or opaque nail polish and you've got an easy at home French manicure."