How To Get Princess Nails

I've never been much of a makeup person, but I am obsessed with my nails. I started growing them out in high school, and I get very sad when one breaks. Since I get so many compliments on my nails, I decided to write a little guide to help you have princess nails too! With the recent advancements in nail wraps, there have never been more easy princess and affordable princess nail options than the are now. You never know when having long nails will come in handy for something. If you use a computer a lot, you tend to look at your fingers fairly often. That's why I try to find the best designs to make my nails look as princess-like as possible. If you like how your nails look, you'll smile every time I look down at your keyboard. Check out these amazing Swan Princess nail wraps I just got from Espionage Cosmetics!

These Moonlight Transformation nail wraps are officially licensed by The Swan Princess and portray the effect of moonlight over the waves on Swan Lake during Odette's transformation. I love the colors as well as the accent nail that subtly shows her as a swan. My order came with 22 wraps in 11 sizes for all different types of nails. In the past, I've had to trim my nail wraps from Jamberry because the smallest size was still too big for my pinky, but these were just right! They peel off and stick on your nails just like stickers without any heat and apply very smoothly. After I applied them, I covered the stickers with a layer of top coat like the website recommends. So far, I haven't had any tearing or chipping. Espionage Cosmetics has three different Swan Princess designs to choose from as well as six for The Last Unicorn. There are tons of other nerdy and pretty designs, and they are cheaper and easier to apply than Jamberry. If you're looking for some eye-catching and unique to put on your nails, you should definitely check them out.

Before Espionage, there was Jamberry. Jamberry nail wraps work similarly to Espionage, but they require you to heat them with a blow dryer before applying. The heat makes them gooey and wrinkly, so you have to do your best to smooth them out over your nail before they cool down again. I was never able to get them quite perfect and ended up with little puckers in my nails that would start peeling over time. Jamberry's designs only stay on their website for a few months or less before they get discontinued, so you have to grab the ones you want as soon as you get the chance. I'm glad I got all the Disney Princess ones when I did since they no longer appear to feature any Disney wraps on their site anymore. Pictured above is a rose nail wrap from Beauty and the Beast on my pinky, sun symbol wrap from Tangled on my ring figure, metallic coral Ariel wraps from The Little Mermaid on my middle and index fingers, and a Disney Princess group nail wrap on my thumb. I love the variety that Jamberry offers with options for clear finishes that create the illusion of having a little picture on your bare nail as well as holographic and metallic designs for a bolder look. They can get rather pricey, and it's a pain to use a blow-dryer on all ten wraps each time you do a new design, though. I think I will be switching to the newer and snazzier Espionage wraps from now on.

Of course, there's always the old school option of painting your own designs. Pictured above is a Little Mermaid design I created using colored nail pens I got from Target with a shimmery blue polish underneath for the base. My red pinky represents Ariel's hair, my ring and middle fingers represent her purple shells, and my index finger and thumb have designs for her tail. Nail pens are not as easy to use as you might think because you have to press down very hard with them to release the polish, which could easily ruin the base polish under the design. It's also surprisingly difficult to get a fine line out of them in order to draw a picture. In the past, I've used toothpicks to drag out pictures from small dots of polish I'd place in the center of my nail. I found that a lot easier to control than the pens. There are also small bottles of polish you can find at certain specialty shops that have tiny brushes with only two or three bristles that you can use for finer designs that don't cover your whole nail. I prefer these over the pens from Target too because they are much easier to paint with. For an extra pop, you can find tiny sequins, pearls, and other accents at craft stores that you can press onto a painted nail and seal with a top coat, but they seem like they would fall off easily if you wear them for too long or brush your finger against something by accident.

There are so many ways to express yourself and bring out your inner princess through nail art. You can find lots of neat tutorials on YouTube if you have enough time to paint intricate details on your nails and wait long enough for them to dry. It's frustrating to touch something by accident and ruin a freshly painted design, especially if you spent a lot of time on it. If you're impatient like me, now you can purchase princess-themed wraps from sites like Espionage Cosmetics or Jamberry that just press on and go! Fashion and makeup are all about expressing yourself, so what can do is limited only by your imagination. With a little time and effort, anyone can make their nails magical!