I hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July! Here's my first ever tape mani.
I started with three coats of Illamasqua Scorch.
The red is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict Animate and the blue is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict Jostle.
I'm sure most of you know how to do tape manis as they are super popular (and awesome) and all over the nail blogosphere now.
Here is how I did it, in case you are curious. I started with three coats of Scorch and then topped it with Poshe. I let it dry pretty well, for several hours. Then, I used scotch tape to mark off on one nail everything except for the part I wanted to be red. I painted it red, careful not to get polish on my skin, and kind of encouraged the glitter pieces to spread out as evenly as I could with the brush. After that, I pulled the piece of tape off, rather swiftly.
I finished all the red parts, going one nail at a time and being careful not to smudge the red glittered areas after. I tried taking some of the stickiness off the tape by sticking it to my palm first, but I found that I actually preferred the tape to be quite sticky. I didn't have any problems because the base polish was completely dry and with it stickier I could keep it on the edge near my cuticle better (so none of the polish I was painting on would pool under the tape).
I let it dry well and actually waited until the next morning to finish. I didn't want to add more top coat yet and I couldn't risk the tape disturbing the red glittered areas.
Then I put a piece of tape down past the line of the red (to create a white stripe), and painted the blue glitter on, one nail at a time. Rip the tape off, continue until done. Follow with top coat and it's finished!
I had other grand ideas involving stars and things, but for the most part I really like how this turned out. It definitely involved more care and planning than I'm used to, but I can see myself doing more tape manis in the future.
Have you tried doing a tape mani yet? If so, what did you think?
Also, if you have any great tips or secrets for me, please share! :)
There's always room for improvement.
Thanks for stopping by! 
