Product review - Nail Rock nail wraps

It is safe to say that nails are the new black. (ok, it may not make complete sense, but it's still safe to say it)

With Chanel now in the habit of bringing out a couple of 'must-have' nail colours every season (hello Black Pearl), and brands such as Konad, Models Own and Barry M launching products to help you create quirky nail designs, it is now easier than ever to have on-trend, fabulous nails.

While there are plenty of nail salons out there, for me and many other folks, it's all about the DIY. When Gem posted her leopard print liquid eyeliner tutorial back in April, I think a lot of us suddenly realised that actually, while it might look complicated, nail art doesn't have to be that difficult to achieve. Fast forward a few months and every blogger under the sun has posted their own versions of leopard print nails, not to mention countless other amazing designs. DIY is definitely where it's at!

Enter Nail Rock wraps:

It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a way for people to Minx their nails DIY-style, and these are the first ones I've seen that do just that. They're £6.50 and were available from Topshop but I think they're sold out at the moment, however, you can also get them from ASOS. I actually posted about them in October and I've had a pack sitting in my cupboard for ages, but I kept telling myself that I had to wait until my nails grew to a reasonable length before I could actually use them. Sadly, being an ex-biter, my nails are fairly weak and tend to grow to a certain length before they just give up or snap or I accidentally bite them. Anyway, this weekend I decided that most of my nails were long to enough to justify me trying them, so I armed myself with a hairdryer, a cuticle stick and a whole bunch of patience and got to it.

This the 'studs' design. I really wanted the snakeskin ones, but they were sold out.

They come with fairly detailed instructions on the pack, but I thought I'd give do a kind of step by step tutorial, adding my two cents along the way.

1. Start by ensuring that there's no shine on the surface of your nail by using the 'smoothing' side of a nail buffer. (You can get a really good multi-sided nail buffer from Primark for about a £1). Easy.

2. Select a wrap from the sheet which most closely matches the size of your nail. There's a variety of different sizes and you can trim them if there isn't one suitable.

3. Place the wrap at one side of your nail, so that the edge lines up with the cuticle. It's much easier to start from one side of the nail and work across, rather than starting at the bottom of the nail and working up.

4. Apply heat to the wrap from your hairdryer (on a low setting). On the instructions it says for a few seconds, but I'd say do it for as long as you can bear. The wrap softens with the heat, and the softer it is, the easier it is to manipulate, so the more heat your apply the better. However, please don't take this to mean that your should burn yourself. That is not my intention. I don't want any hairdryer related injuries on my conscience. I just don't need that.

5. After applying heat, take the flat end of a wooden cuticle stick, and smooth the wrap onto the nail, going from one side to the other, ensuring there are no bumps and creases on the surface of the wrap. (if you do get a crease, apply more heat, lift the wrap off your nail and start over).

6. Rub the cuticle stick over the entire surface of the wrap, to ensure it is fully adhered to your nail. (you can apply more heat here if you want)

7. Trim most of excess wrap with nail scissors, leaving a couple of milimeters above your actual nail. File the remaining bit away, by filing your nails gently, in a downwards motion. This for me was the trickiest bit as you want to get the end of the wrap to line up smoothly with your actual nail. Just take your time with it and don't be too rough. I used a nail file from Boots that had different sizes of grit on it; use a really rough grit to remove most of the wrap, then a finer grit to neaten it all up at the end.

Voila, you're done! I just read back through those steps and realised it might be better to do a video tutorial to show exactly how to apply them. There could already be tutorials online, I've not looked, but if anyone would like to see one, let me know and I might just do it!

It may look like a lot of steps, but it's really not too difficult. You do need to be patient; it took me a least an hour, though I did take a break after doing the first hand as I was getting bored. As with anything like this, it would be easier if you had someone helping you, but it's certainly not impossible to do it on your own. The bits you've got to really be careful with are making sure there's no creases in the wrap as you smooth it onto your nail, and filing it all away neatly at the end. As you can see from the photo below, creases do happen, however this was my first try and after doing that one I got much better!

I've had the wraps on for a couple of days now and they've stayed on quite well; the corners are starting to lift on a few nails, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't picked at them a bit... I think I'm going to just wait and see how long I can leave them for before they start looking crap. I hope they last until the end of the week because I'm going out on Friday night, but we shall see...

IMO they're really cool and it's nice to have an intricate pattern on my nails for once, rather than my standard leopard print or stripes. I'd definitely be up for using them again and, having looked on ASOS I've noticed there's some other exciting new patterns available now which I'd love to try. For the price, they're definitely worth it, as you potentially get two applications out of a pack (there's 24 stickers of varying sizes).

Have you tried the Nail Rock wraps? What did you think? Are you into DIY nails or do you think nothing beats a professional manicure?