Hit me with your laserbeam!

If you fancy having space nails without being modified to incorporate metallic fingertips, then there is a less drastic alternative. Having tried a professional foil gel nail makeover, I was delighted to find do-it-yourself holographic foils in Brighton’s Cyberdog (and also available online).

The foils come in various patterns, including ‘laserbeam’, ‘orbital’ and ‘stardust’. They’re extremely simple to apply: using a dab of base coat and a pair of manicure scissors – no specialist UV hardening machine required. The professional gel manicure required some rather destructive nail buffering with a coarse file to smooth any ridges and imperfections from the nail. This also weakened the nail under the extremely tough gel polish and, once the polish was removed the underlying nail had to have several months’ rest in order to recover its natural strength.

So, bearing that in mind, a do-it-yourself foil option seemed less destructive and was easily as rockin’!

There was no need to pre-shape nails, just apply one or two layers of base coat. I used budget 2True nail care basecoat from Superdrug.

The foils are extremely thin; far thinner than regular nail wraps – almost on a par with tin foil. The glue can be encouraged to be a bit stickier with a gentle blast from the low heat of a hair-dryer, if required. Resting the pre-shaped curved end into the base of your nail, press the foil across the whole nail, gently squeezing our any air bubbles. Use a cuticle hoof to flatten and smooth any creases.

Trim the edges with nail scissors – you don’t have to be too accurate. Then gently file the ends using an emery board in a downwards stroke to remove any overhanging foil. Now you’re ready to climb into your spaceship!