Comedy 'self adhesive silk strip' moment

[shortshadylady]

Well,

I finally bought some self adhesive silk strips in order to repair a badly split thumb nail of mine. Well!!! What an absolute comedy of errors it turned out to be!!! I wish you'd all been around to watch me lovingly cut a sensible sized piece and then be completely unable to separate the piece from the backing. Glasses off. Try again (I'm getting old. Definitely varifocal territory!). Nope! Still couldn't prise it apart. Finally managed to edge a corner up with some stork scissors (after mutilating my left thumb). I should then have used the piece to act as an Elastoplast over the pin cushion that was now my hand. Noooo. I was gonna make this sucker work! It was going on my nail come hell or high water...... or so I thought.

Cutting a very long and painful story short, I finally managed to adhere a now very scruffy, fibrous piece of silk over my left thumb nail, narrowly missing the actual tear. Seriously, you couldn't make it up!!!

All advice on how to handle this demon sticky stuff is warmly welcomed x

 

[sleepingbeauty]

LOL. I can't begin to understand how you managed to have such a problem but then clearly you did.

I have a cuticle pusher tool with a kind of knife on the end. I use the point of the knife to lift the edge of the cut silk and then stick it to the edge of my tool so that the majority of it is daggling / free falling. I then place it upon the nail from left side wall to right & gently pat into place. I then use my gel to saturate it, so that the silk disappears upon the nail & then cure. If theres a ridge then I file & smooth the ridge - I am then able to proceed with the rest of the gel application..

 

[JuicyLucy]

Leave the silk on the backing paper. Lift the edge away from the backing paper and then cut so that the new sticky cut piece sticks to the end of your scissors IYKWIM, but the backing paper is not cut. After lots of use you should end up with a long strip of backing paper which you can just tear off.

After placement, carefully dab with your basecoat rather than trying to brush (which will cause movement of the silk).

HTH

 

[shortshadylady]

Och, you ladies are too kind! Thank you for those extremely helpful tips.

And not one single word of mockery at the shambles that was my attempt to use silk! Now, that's professionalism for you! ;-) x

 

[Nails Plus]

Hi, I use a pair of tweezers and pinch it from the backing paper, works every time!

 

[shortshadylady]

Hi, I use a pair of tweezers and pinch it from the backing paper, works every time!

Thank you x

 

[Tigan]

I do same as JuicyLucy, i only lift the amount i plan to use and i never cut the backing paper, i lift then place it on nail then once on nail i cut off the silk only, also to get the silk up initially (with say, a new pack) i rub the silk back at a tiny corner ( like the way you might turn a page on a magazine) so you are touching the actual silk and bringing it back and not trying to separate them from the seam line (impossible, lol) been there.

 

[MeToYouNails]

It did make me smile as I could see you doing it all in my head!
I wish you had it on video. Can you imagine how many hits on You Tube you would have had for 'How not to do a....'!

Great advice from everyone of "How to...".

 

[BuffyFileSlayer]

Hi, I use a pair of tweezers and pinch it from the backing paper, works every time!

Me too and I just have to say I LOVE your cat!!! xx

 

[unas escarlata]

I use a cocktail stick for peeling the paper away from the silk...and then keeping the silk on the stick place it on the nail so that none of my skin oils transfer and impair ahdesion

HTH