Nail Art Stripes: 3 ways, 1 recommendation

Hi!

Today's blog post is on how to get nail art stripes if you don't have  nail art stripers. The possible tools that I've decided to use are : a toothpick, a bobby pin, and tape. Of course, if you have a nail art striper, use it. But out of these unconventional tools, one of them is better to use than others. Here's my review on the 3.

• toothpick: I created the stripe by dragging the bobby pin across the nail and re-dipping into the nail polish as necessary. The toothpick is a little "dry" because of it's material so the nail polish didn't "glide" smoothly over the nail and this was also done free-hand. Even thought I went slow in drawing the stripe, it still came out jagged.
• hair bobby pin: I created the stripe by dragging the bobby pin across the nail and re-dipping into the nail polish as necessary. It was a little easier to drag because the bobby pin's ball tip was smooth-ish which made the nail polish "glide" better than the toothpick. But again, this was free-hand so I had to go slow and still my stripe came out jagged.

• tape: I placed 2 strips of standard clear tape parallel to each other on the nail and spaced them according to how thick or thin I wanted my stripe to be. Once the tape was positioned how I wanted, I painted over the "gap" and then removed the tape to reveal a clean straight stripe. With the two strips of parallel tape, the stripe is basically “drawn” and all that is needed is filling in.There is no need to be as cautious with doing this because the rest of the nail is covered with tape (as you can see in the picture down below).

L to R:
-Sally Hansen: Double Duty
-Sally Hansen: White On
-Maybelline Color Show: Oral Crush 190
-Spoiled: I Got So Plastered
Tools: Tape, bobby pin, and toothpick

Started off by painting a white stripe down the middle of my nails using the polish's brush.

Painted another stripe down the side of my nails using only the polish's brush.

Ok, so on my index finger, I used the toothpick to make my stripe. As you can see, the stripe looks wiggly  and uneven. The same goes for my middle finger's stripe and you can tell. Now for my ring finger, you can see how I positioned the two pieces of tape to make a "gap" in the middle of the nail. This gap is where I'm going to paint over and fill in.

After I painted over my ring finger, I peeled off the tape. You can see that this stripe isn't perfect but it's cleaner  looking and straighter compared to using the toothpick and bobby pin.

My Recommendation: go with the tape. It's easier! and saves you time compared to using the toothpick and bobby pin.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!