Ready Your Laser Beams!

As promised, here it is - the laser mani post! I meant to have this up last night but it ended up taking longer than I thought but better late than never, right?

So what exactly is a laser mani? A laser mani is a type of striping mani involving neon colors that look like little lazer beams. In this post I will be following the neon/black style but you can use this technique with any colors you want to create tons of different looks.

The neons I used for this many are all Orly polishes. They are (from left to right) Beach Cruiser, Melt Your Popsicle, Glowstick, Purple Crush, & Skinny Dip. The black is Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris. See that little ring on the black polish? That is our striping tape.

I opted to use special thin tape made for nail art that I purchased here. This tape comes in different beautiful colors & can be used to do some really neat things, I will be sure to showcase more ways to use it in the future. Now if you don't want to order striping tape you can cut your own strips of tape. The pro of cutting your own is you can do whatever length you want, however you aren't guaranteed straight cuts & that would drive me crazy.

Remember the Shine of the Times I mentioned in my last post? Before removing the seran wrap mani I painted it on one nail to get an idea of how it looks.

Awesome right? I also wanted to include this picture for another reason. Notice how the tips no longer have much polish despite the fact that the mani has held up pretty well - I credit the holding up to the Seche Vite topcoat. This mani phenomena is often referred to as shrinkage. So when we do our laser mani we are going to utilize a strategy known as wrapping the tips to minimize this.

Before starting make sure your nails are color (sweeping a dab of acetone over each nail helps ensure this) & cuticles taken care of. Once the base coat is on wrap it - ideally the base, color, & topcoat should be wrapped for maximum efficiency. Once you've painted a coat holding your nail brush up facing towards the ceiling.

Gentle swipe the very tip of your nail across the brush to get a nice even layer over the very tip. Some people prefer to paint a strip across the tip but I've personally found this way gets less polish under the nail. Don't worry if you have a bit of overlap on top of the nail, just paint another layer over the top of your nail & it will look even.

Once your base coat is on paint your nail whatever color you want your lasers to be. I chose to do a different color on each nail.

I loved all of these colors except Glowstick. It took several tries to get a decent coat because it was very streaky & just wouldn't cooperate. In the end I settled for this since the majority will be covered up anyway.

Once your polish is completely dry cut strips of your tape & lay them over your nail in the design you would like for your lasers. I found that the colors come out much nicer if you apply a topcoat, then the black, & then a topcoat again. You should experiment with your colors of choice & see what works for you. Some of the colors like the pink looked great regardless but the blue really benefited from the sandwiching. When cutting your tape remember to cut enough so that you can easily pull the strips off later.

 

Taped up & ready to go!

Press down firmly on the tape & make sure there are no wrinkles in the tape and nowhere where your top polish can seep underneath the tape. Once your tape is securely in place, paint your topcoat over the tape making sure to cover up all of the original color. It is okay if it is messy, mine was since I was making sure to cover up the pink, we can clean up later.

I was impressed with this black considering it was a 99 cent polish - had a nice shine & dried quickly

For me the hardest part was waiting for the black to dry fully - I'm not a patient person so learning manis has forced me to push that. But I learned the hard way if you pull the tape off too quickly you will get a goopy, ugly mess. If that happens don't be afraid to start over - but remember, if you remove your polish & start again don't forget to reapply the base coat! Since I can be a bit of a perfectionist I did several nails over a few times. Once you're sure your polish is dry, carefully remove the strips & seal your design in with a base coat.

On this nail & a couple others I had slight fading of the neon color underneath so I took a very fine detail brush, dipped it in polish & carefully touched up the line. Now, onto the rest of the fingers!

 

Pretty neat eh? Overall this isn't a difficult mani but for me was a time consuming one since I did multiple nails over.

During cleanup I made a pretty big mistake. Remember how I mentioned dipping your brush right into the acetone could be bad if you have painted brushes? Well I got lazy & ignored my own advice. Then my hand slipped & I dropped my brush right into the acetone. The result...

Gross, black acetone that leaves smudgy black marks

So learn from my mistake & don't do that! Just pour a little acetone into the cap & fill that as needed. I would be careful putting it in a plastic bowl since acetone can erode plastics.

I hope you are inspired to try some striping! As I mentioned in my first post I got an early copy of Richelle Mead's The Golden Lily but next week in honor of the real release date I will be doing a gold gradient design. The week after that I will be doing Pokéball nails to celebrate the release of Pokémon Conquest which I reserved a couple days ago. When I was 10 years old I asked for a Gameboy color specifically to play Pokémon Blue. Fourteen years & many games later I'm still playing & loving it! Don't forget to vote in the poll on my Facebook page for what manis you would like to see in the future & feel free to drop me any comments or suggestions.