Nail Vinyls Review and Chevron Nail Art

Today I have something fun on the blog. I've used these a few times now but have never done a blog post on them. I'm talking about the ever popular Nail Vinyls!!!

Admittedly I've only purchased once, although I've wanted to purchase many times, but I've used them several times and loved them every time! I ordered the chevrons and lightning bolts but have yet to use the lightning bolts. I've done at least three different manis with my chevrons though. 

I originally found Nail Vinyls through their Instagram account.  I kept seeing all these amazing manis all over Instagram using the product and creating awesome looks that I would otherwise do with scotch tape, which would always end up being time consuming and frustrating. So I figured I had to give them a whirl and I'm so glad I did. It's such a simple and quick way to do really awesome nail art. Anyone can use them, novice, amateur, pro, DOESN'T MATTER!

When I ordered about a year ago Nail Vinyls was still pretty new and just had basic chevrons, straights, right angles, and lightning bolts. There may have been a few other things as well but it was mainly just the basics. Now Nail Vinyls has a whole host of different types of designs and such, as well as the basics it started with. 

Some background on Nail Vinyls:

Located in High Point, North Carolina, USA, Nail Vinyls is actually a one-woman operation! Linda (creator) makes all of the Nail Vinyls herself as well as processes and packages all orders on her own. When she is not doing her Nail Vinyl thing she is busy raising two teenage girls with her husband, taking care of their home, and painting her own nails. She is also a contract makeup artist and "retired" esthetics instructor. 

How to use Nail Vinyls (as taken from the FAQ on the Nail Vinyls website):

• Nail vinyls are meant to be used as a guide, or stencil, and not as a "permanent" part of your nail art.
• Begin with a good base coat and then paint your nails with 1 or 2 coats of your base color. Allow this color to dry. This step is very important. Personally, I prefer a fast drying top coat such as HK Girl, Seche Vite or Sally Hansen Inst-Dry. But any fast drying top coat will do. Most of these will dry the nail and prepare it for the next step in about 10 minutes. (Without a true quick dry top coat, you may have lifting of the base color even if it's allowed to dry for hours. This is due to the ingredients in some nail polish that prevents it from completely drying).
• Using tweezers, lift the nail vinyl from the sheet and place on your nail however you wish. Before you press the edges onto your skin, use the back of your tweezers to press the vinyl to the edges of your nail around your cuticle. This step prevents color bleeding under your vinyl. If you are having trouble getting your vinyl to stick, please see the FAQ "Help! My vinyls won't stick!"
• Paint your nail, directly over the vinyls, with your second color. Do not apply this too thick or it could potentially run once the vinyls are removed.
• While this second color is still wet, use tweezers to gently lift the vinyl from your nail. Do this carefully and slowly as to not disturb the design.
• Apply top coat and Voila! Easiest nail art ever! 
• (Remember to use a top coat that will not smear your nail art!)

So for my most recent nail art using the chevrons I started out with a plain base of a new colour I'm working on for a new collection for my own indie polish line, hopefully releasing this spring! I won't show you that colour on its own as I still want to keep that under wraps for now. But you'll get a bit of a sneak peek at it in the finished nail art look. I had swatched this lacquer a few days ago and applied one of my scented topcoats so I already new it was completely dry and had no worries of any lifting with the vinyls. 

I placed two chevron strips on an angle on each of my nails, all angled in the same direction (I did the opposite direction on my other hand). I then used my own Mrs. P's Potions I Pink You're Hot over the Nail Vinyls on my pinky, index, and thumb nails - making sure to paint one nail at a time and remove the Nail Vinyls while the polish was wet and before moving on to paint the next nail. I then used a plain black base polish I use for mixing black polishes and painted that over the Nail Vinyls on my ring finger and middle nails. Again, doing one nail at a time making sure to remove the Nail Vinyls while the polish was wet before moving on to paint the next nail. I let that dry for a couple minutes and then I topped it all off with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl, as I always do with all my nail art so as not to streak or smudge my designs. 

Here is the final overall look!

Girly and yet edgy! I'm in LOVE!

Here's a couple macro shots as usual too!

I've created a couple other looks in the past with my chevron Nail Vinyls as well. 

This last Christmas season I created a couple accent nails overtop a mani of my LE Silent Night lacquer by arranging the chevrons in a staggered pattern to cover the entire nails and painting a coat of my LE Tales Of Tinseltown (still a few bottles available for purchase on the website) overtop, creating a few lines of diamonds on the accent nails. 

Here's a look:

And back in the spring of 2014 when I unveiled my Spring Has Sprung Collection, I created an Eastery mani using the chevrons overtop Fillet Minion and Glass Slipper and painted over them with Tough Bananas and Tiptoe Through The Tulips. 

Here's a look at that one:

I apologize for the poorer quality of this photo, I couldn't seem to find the better ones I took with my actual camera and this was just a quick snap with my iPhone 

So as you can see, the number of different looks you can create even with the exact same shaped Nail Vinyls is LIMITLESS! I really should try out my lightning bolts one of these days. I just haven't thought of an idea/concept STRIKING enough (haha see what I did there?! Lightning...strike...??? LOL) to warrant the use of them. I'll start brainSTORMING though... okay, okay, I'm done ;)

Any and all information you could ever want on Nail Vinyls can be found on the website. It is quite informative and like I said, their range of products has grown nicely over the last year or so. Definitely something for everyone. You can also check out their Facebook Page.

Nail Vinyls ships worldwide and you can also find them at these international stockists:

piCture pOlish in Australia

Llarowe in the United States

Norway Nails in Norway (Europe)

Hypnotic Polish in the Netherlands (also ships to Germany, Belgium, France, and rest of EU)

Nil Nails in Macau (Macau, Mainland China, Hong Kong & Taiwan)

Girly Bits in Canada

LakoDom in Russia

So what do you all think of these Nail Vinyl chevron looks? Which one is your favourite?  Who's tried Nail Vinyls before and who hasn't? And who's rushing over to any of the links above to make a purchase ASAP?! LOL ;)

Thanx for stopping by and taking a peek!

-Bree (AKA Mrs. P) ox's