Super Sparkly Nails!

I went on a little trip over the weekend, so I decided to use some Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips. I have gotten better at my application technique. I'll tell you how I applied them down below:

I applied these last Wednesday and had to take them off last night (Sunday) because they had chipped A LOT. These are great fun, but I do not think they last for ten days, as the box says. I really don't mind, though, because I change my nails quite often anyway. So, my grandparents had gotten me a box of a bunch of different Salon Effects strips last Christmas. You are supposed to use a package for each hand, but I save mine by using only one package for two hands. My nails are small, so I am able to apply a strip and use scissors to cut off the excess to use on my opposite hand's nail. I will take you through how I use these: I used one package of Blue Ice strips. They're super sparkly and I LOVE them! I made sure my nails had no lotion or skin oil on them by taking a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol on it and swiping it over all my nails. I then chose the nail polish strips that would fit best on each of my nails. I would apply one and made sure it was not touching my cuticle at all so that it could be totally pressed down onto my nail. I would then use scissors to cut off the excess to use on my other nail. This time, I never used the file tool that came with the strips. I find that that can rough up the strip at the tip of your nail. I let my nails get a teeny bit long before using these so that I could just use my fingers to press on the little bit of excess strip hanging over the tip of my nail. My nail would cut the strip and then I would gently remove that. I recently got a Sally Hansen rubber cuticle pusher (which is making my cuticles look SO great! I would definitely recommend you get one!) and I would use that to press down on the surface of the strip to make sure it was completely adhered to my nails. After applying the strips to all of my nails, I used one of the left over large strips (each package comes with eight so you can try to match them to your nail size) and applied it to my big toenails. I had to throw out the remaining strip. You cannot save these once a package is open because they are made of real nail polish and they dry out. I applied the ones on my toes over top of polish, which is not recommended, but it worked fine. I finished all of them off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. You do not need to use a top coat, but I prefer to. I noticed that, as they were drying on my nails, the edges of the strips near the sides of my nails and my cuticles would lift up a little. It didn't matter much, but it could be that I still had oil residue near my cuticles. Who knows. I was extremely happy with these, though, because of how beautiful they are! I used the tin foil and cotton ball method to remove the strips.