Carbon fiber nails tutorial

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On to the nail stuff!


I've been on a hunt to do proper carbon fiber nails for a long time now, years even. I've always loved that look on cars and motorcycles and would absolutely LOVE it on my nails. Yes, I realize it's not flowers or pretty stuff, but I guess I'm different and have different ideas of what looks good to me. I suppose that makes me a bit weird, but in the end we're all individuals and I'm ok with that.


The other day I found carbon fiber look alike sticker sheets that made me want to try this look and I figured a tutorial would be a good thing, for those that might actually be interested. So here we go. This is what the end result looks like, but I must say up front, these sticker sheets are too thick so the result isn't the best.

This is the sticker sheet I found. I found this one in Portugal, so for those of you in other countries, I don't know where you can find it.

It's basically a roll of sticker stuff, like this.

In order to make it work on my nails, I had to cut out pieces of it that fit my nails. I happen to have this random set of cut out nail stickers (by a brand I don't remember) that I figured would be good for using them as templates.

I simply placed them colour down (in case I marked them up and still wanted to try them at some point) and then carefully traced the nails I wanted to use. Yeah, carefully haha, not really.

Once I had the shapes traced, I then cut them out one by one.

Once they're all cut out, I peeled the white backing off and placed them on each nail.

  This time I didn't bother taking off my old mani, so you can see the purple underneath (which by the way is Catrice Forget-Me-Not). 

As you can see the shapes I cut out were a bit longer than needed, so once on the nail, I trimmed them to size.

Once all the stickers were on my nails, I used a hair dryer to warm up the stickers a bit to make them more pliable, to be able to take out some of the wrinkles and puckering.

I was told by a guy who's worked with decals/stickers on cars that it makes sense to add some heat, so that the sticker will be easier to work with, then to use a tool, like a cuticle pusher to press the wrinkles out. I also had to create tiny cuts on the side of a couple of nails to get rid of the puckering.

Over all, I found this to be a lot of work and even though I did my best, trying to get rid of the wrinkles, they didn't. So I don't think I'd try this again with this sticker sheet. I really do have to find another thinner one.

I did not keep these stickers on all day, only for the purpose of the photos, so I'm not sure how well they would stay on all day. I can say though that the stickers came off pretty easily, so I imagine that they wouldn't last long.

Oh and in case some of you are curious, my inspiration for this manicure is this awesome motorcycle I found online, wrapped in carbon fiber. It's a Honda CBR600rr, my dream bike.

Image borrowed from www.bikerpunks.com.