[Jamberry] Cutting your wraps to fit: Using a pedicure as an example

After you've gotten some practice with getting the Jamberry wraps on your fingers, the next step is to conquer them toes. Them toes, I said! For me this is actually a great feat. Regularly I avoid painting my toenails because even though I have some kind of control and precision when it come to my nails, my toes are so far away and I just can't see what I'm doing close enough. So naturally, when it came to the wraps, I waited a bit, and well, I'm not going to lie. It took a little getting used to. But after the first time every subsequent application should come easier. That's just my opinion :).

If you navigated over here and have no idea how to apply Jamberry Wraps in general, I suggest you read my previous blog post about application & watch the video in it.

Here is a sheet of Gold Sparkle. I used the 2 largest-sized strips for my pedicure. The largest one was used for all the smaller toenails and the next size down was for my big toe. For my big toe, I just cut that one in half and did a regular application so I didn't need to do any more cutting. Now for the toes, I used one of my leftover strip to size my toes. It turns out that one strip was almost the size of all of my toes. What that meant was that I didn't have a lot of tracing to do, just tweaking after I'd trace stuff. 

Even though we are using a pedicure as an example, the cutting part/modification should be similar for your fingernails. I will do a separate post on that at a later date.

Gold Sparkle after 1 pedicure:

PROCESS:

1) Finding a strip that is almost the same size as most of your toenails. 

Still on the plastic backing, I cut it in half after I've found the strip I want. 

Then I cut the whole strip off. Notice I have not peeled the plastic backing off. I don't need to.

I just need one half of it.

I check that it fits. Yay, it does! Remember, it MUST NOT OVERLAP SKIN OR CUTICLES!

If you don't have an extra strip lying around, you'll have to try your best to free hand this. Practice on a paper first, cut it out, and see if it fits on your toe. Don't just blindly cut it out of the strip. You'll waste your nail wraps if you mess up. Also, if your toenails are all different sizes, then you'll just have to repeat the same process with a different sized strip.

2) Tracing the shape of this strip on the back of the wrap you are using:

Turn your Jamberry sheet over. We will be working on the back of it. I used a pencil because when I tried a pen or marker, it "fizzled"and disappeared...you know what I mean. It's plastic so pens and markers don't really work very well and are easily smudged. Pencil marks can be smudged too but not as easily. Use whatever works for you.

I want to utilize my space so I trace 3 of it into the largest strip.

I flip it over so I can get rounded edges on the top and bottom. 

I only needed to trace 4 times because my toenails are short so I will just be cutting in half horizontally to divide it. If your toenails are long, trace more and do not cut in half like I will be doing later. Measure your toenails first!!

3) Cutting: Here's where I cut horizontally. Remember, only do this if your toenails are short enough! 

Then I cut them all out.

Ok, not the most perfect cutting job in the planet. Practice makes perfect! You should have 10 total! 2 for big toes, then 8 little ones that you had to cut out for each of your 8 toenails.

4) Application. I apply to all of them to my toes. Application was the same. Make sure you clean your toenails and use alcohol to remove residual dirt and acetone to remove residual polish, if any. Pluck the wrap with tweezers off the plastic backing. Heat with hair dryer or heater. Hair dryer may be easier here. Then place carefully, reposition if needed (no overlapping on the skin or cuticles!), then added pressure, pressure, pressure! Heat again, wait for it to cool, cut off or file excess, then heat and press briefly again. For me my toenails are smaller than my fingernails, so I had to be very careful about not touching the adhesive (only by the corners) when placing it on my nail. I also had to apply lots of pressure to the edges. Wait until all the edges are sealed and moisturize. No video this time...it's hard to do the thing on your toes and then do macro...doable, sure, but for now, here's the final product! 

Yes it took me a little longer than applying to my fingers. I will also be really honest; doing your toes is harder because your toenails are really small and it's hard to file down at the end because mine curved at the tips so I was basically filing my skin...use the nail scissors instead, folks! But the cutting process took a while because I'm not the best cutter! My toenails are kind of shaped funny, so when you look at the above, you know it could be better. And from far away it looks good, haha :). I will be doing a wear test on it and seeing if it does stay a while. I definitely recommend trying the pedicure after you've got a solid understanding on how to apply to your fingernails. Also, I should point out that when I polish my toenails, it looks worse than this. It chips. It ... just doesn't work. So even though these jams took a while to apply for me, I think I might do this instead :).

 If you've done yours, tell me of your experiences!