The Lite Side of Life: Mani Monday: The Candy Cane Mani

Seasons Greetings you amazing readers! :)

I am currently enjoying a long weekend in beautiful Cape Town and loving every second of it (posts soon!), but nevertheless had to feature a recent holiday themed mani I did, my twist on the candy cane mani!

The candy cane mani was achieved by highlighting the accent nails with candy cane detailing using red striping tape placed diagonally over a white base nail paired with red nails with metallic red french tips shadowed by red striping tape. The metallic red french tip is very subtle in the photos, but I didn’t want the french tip colour to be too distracting from the candy cane accent nail. To achieve this festive mani I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener x1 coat as a base coat, Revlon White on White as on the ring fingers x3 coats, Rimmel Heart on Fire x2 coats on the rest of nails, Rimmel Red Carpet x 1 coat for nail art (metallic red french tips), red striping tape for nail art and Essence Studio Nails Better than Gel Nails Top Sealer as a topcoat.

You will need:

Base coat nail polish
Base colour nail polish (I chose red)
Base colour nail polish for accent fingers (I chose white)
Coloured nail polish for french tips (I chose metallic red)
Sticky tape/french tip guides
Pair of scissors
Red striping tape

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely

2) Apply x3 coats of white nail polish to ring nails and x2 coats of red nail polish to the remaining nails, wait for it to dry completely

3) Cut sticky tape into 10 small pieces and apply your make shift ‘sticky tape french tip guides’ (or use proper french tip guides) to all nails except the ring nails (accent nails), make sure you gently but firmly press the sticky tape down onto the nail

4) Paint the metallic red nail polish onto all nails which have the ‘sticky tape french tip guides’ on and once the metallic red nail polish is painted on, wait a few seconds and then pull off the ‘sticky tape french tip guide’. I find pulling the ‘sticky tape french tip guide’ off while the french tip nail polish is still wet is best as it leaves a cleaner line. I have tried leaving the ‘sticky tape french tip guides’ and normal french tip guides on till the french tips have dried completely and I have always ended up with a messy line. Complete applying metallic red nail polish to all nails with ‘sticky tape french tip guides’

5) Now to work on the candy cane accent nails, cut 4-5 strips (depending on length of your nail) of red striping tape and apply the 4 strips of red striping tape diagonally onto the nail to mimic the candy cane design

6) Once the metallic red french tips are dry, cut 10 strips of red striping tape to fit the nail and carefully apply each strip of red striping tape above the metallic red french tip so that the red striping tape shadows the metallic red french tip

7) Apply top coat to all nails, wait for it dry completely and you are ready to rock some uber festive nails!

8) It's obligatory to be singing along to some cute Christmas carols, my fav this week is Deck the Halls…come on it’s 9 days till Christmas! ‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la la la la la la, Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la la la,…’