This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll earn a commission should you choose to make a purchase through one of these links. This is at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclaimer here.
Nail hacks are everywhere on TikTok at the moment. From neatening up your mani with vaseline to soaking off your press-ons with oil, people are finding all kinds of tricks to make the process a little easier. But the one that really caught my eye was the latest French tip hack!
It usually takes me ages to paint on each tip individually, so the prospect of it taking less than 3 seconds per nail fully sold it to me. But did it actually work? Keep reading to find out!
What is it?
There have been a few iterations of this nail hack. People have used makeup sponges, silicone blenders and even the tips of their fingers to create the same effect. This particular version, however, involves using a silicone stamping tool to press the colour onto the nail. Angling the nail just right should, in theory, leave you with the perfect French tip shape.
I couldn’t find out who first came up with this idea. If anyone knows the name of the creator, let me know in the comments!
STEP-BY-STEP: How to do the French tip hack
- Prep and shape your nails. Read my guide to the perfect at-home manicure for more information on how to do this.
- Buff your nail plate and apply your base coat.
- Paint your nails with a few coats of a natural-toned nail polish. I recommend a sheer pink or peach colour.
- Take your silicone stamper and paint on a couple of lines of your chosen French tip shade. Make sure you’ve applied enough to cover the width of your nail.
- Press your nail into the stamper at a 45 degree angle.
- Slowly pull your finger away from the stamper and, voilà, your French manicure is complete!
Does the French tip hack really work?
As you can see from the video above, I did have some success using this technique. However, there were a few drawbacks that would make me think twice about using this method again.
For fairness I decided to try it out using both regular and gel nail polish, here are my thoughts…
USING GEL POLISH?
Pros:
- Gel polish doesn’t dry up (without curing) so I could take as long as I needed to prepare before pressing my nail into the stamper.
- The polish was less sticky so it applied much more smoothly and the overall finish was better.
- I didn’t have to worry about the base layer being dry before I applied the French tip.
Cons:
- This technique does get does end up getting gel polish over your skin which is really not advised. To be safe I would avoid doing this with gel polish to minimise the risk of developing an allergy.
- Though I thought I cleaned up all the extra polish, my skin and nail still got kind of stuck together after curing. Again, I think using gel with this technique is pretty risky since it’s hard to tell whether you have polish under your nails (even if you think you’ve cleaned it all up)!
USING REGULAR POLISH?
Pros:
- Much easier to clean up excess polish.
- The nail polishes weren’t as sheer meaning I didn’t really need to fill in any gaps on the tip or do a second coat.
- Using regular polish with this technique is obviously much safer because it doesn’t matter so much if you get any on your skin!
Cons:
- There was a lot of waiting between coats and I had to make sure the base layer was completely dry before I attempted to do the French tip.
Related posts:
An Essential Guide To The Perfect At-Home Manicure
Final thoughts
Overall, I think this is an amazing hack if you really struggle to nail those crisp lines that are so characteristic of a classic French tip. It takes a lot of the fiddling away and also saves a lot of time in the actual painting stage. I mean, it literally takes about 2 seconds to press it into your nail.
However, it takes almost as much time to clean up the polish on the underside of your nail as it does to manually paint on the French tip. So I guess it kind of balances out.
I would use this hack again, but I think next time I’d be more careful about how much polish I’m putting on the stamper. A stroke or two should be enough to cover the tip of the nail without leaving excess polish all over your fingertips! Maybe combining it with the Vaseline hack would stop the nail polish going everywhere, I’ll have to try it!!
Where can you buy a silicone nail stamper?
Amazon has a good range of nail stampers. I bought mine a while back and I can’t seem to find the exact same one on the site anymore, but here are a few that are similar:
MoYou London also stocks a whole bunch of different stampers too. Check them out here.
Have you tried this French tip hack? How did you find it? Let me know!
Hi,
I tried this method and fell into the same trap, gel under the nail. I found that the gel on the top is thicker than the base coat on the nail, did you have that problem? I haven’t tried it with regular Polish but will give it a go soon.
Hey! I had a slight problem with that too, not extremely noticeable but definitely thicker than the base. Some people have suggested doing the French tip first and then filling in the base colour afterwards. I haven’t got round to trying this method yet but I’d be interested to see if it makes a difference ☺️
Love this so much! Thank you! I am definitely going to try this technique.
Thanks so much for your comment Sophie, let me know how it goes when you do! 😊