My first sucessful chevron moons!

I have a really, really exciting manicure to share with you all today.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love a good chevron, but I’ve never been very good with creating chevrons with tape as something always seems to go wrong. However I found a foolproof way to create chevron moons, and I’m a very happy girl. I also documented the process so I could share with you my easy tutorial on how to create these chevrons if you–like myself–have trouble getting tape manicures to work the way you want. =)

First step on creating this chevron moon manicure is to paint your base color. For this manicure, I painted my nails with Lavender Lustre from Maybelline’s “holographic” collection. I painted this color the previous night, followed by quick dry top coat, to make sure they would be super dry before I tried any taping. Always make sure you let your base color fully dry–the worst thing in the world is starting a tape manicure, and pulling off part of the base color when you go to remove it.

Next step is to choose a complimentary color. I went with this shimmery pink Claire’s polish (no name) that I found in my stash from my parent’s attic.

Here is how I created my foolproof chevrons. Instead of trying to perfectly place tape on my nails, I bought circular labels at my local stationary store. While still on the paper, I cut each one into four (as equal as I could) pie shapes. I then applied each “pie” to my nails, making sure to get them in the same spot on each nail.

Paint your secondary color over top of the nail and stickers. I had to apply two coats of pink on each nails as the Claire’s polish I was using was a little thin.

Next comes removing the stickers. I used tweezers, and discovered pulling up from the bottom evenly gives you the best lines. It wasn’t until I got to my second (non-dominant) hand that I realized that was the best way to get cleaner lines. As you can see, on this hand my lines ended up a little wonky (especially my pinky.)

Next, I took my black Stripe Rite striping polish, and drew clean black lines to even out where the tape was. This helped clean up my wonky lines, giving a more even look to the manicure.

Finally, add top coat to smooth and seal. Bam! Awesome and easy chevron moons!

I’ve recently been testing out Nutra Nail Quick Dry top coat, and I must say I’m pretty impressed. It dries just as quickly as my Sally Hansen Diamond Flash, and look at the shine! Very pretty.

So what do you think of this technique for a successful chevron moon manicure? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this technique sooner!  It’s just as quick and easy as creating a half moon manicure! I can’t wait to try out more color combinations, or moving around the triangles to create a neat geometric design.