Fake Nail Tattoos

Today I've got real nail tattoos from a brand named Fake, who kindly sent me some of their products for review. These tattoos come on paper backing and are protected by a clear plastic top sheet. I was so anxious to try them that I pulled off the top sheet and cut out the first design before I remembered to take a picture.



Here's the missing image from the sheet above, set down for a moment on the wet cloth (in this case a paper towel) I was planning to use to get the paper backing to come off once I had the image on my nail.



Here are the full directions:



There are some similarities between these and water decals, but enough differences that I struggled a bit working with them. With water decals, I generally soak them off the backing paper and then pick them up with a cuticle pusher and slide them into place on my nail. These tattoos are designed to stick to your nail with the paper backing still on (the exposed side of the tattoo is a bit tacky to help with the sticking) and then have it soaked off with a wet cloth. When I tried doing that with the paper backing dry, I had trouble because I couldn't see where the design was exactly. When I wet the paper slightly first, that let the design shadow through so I could see. I also wasn't patient enough at first for the paper to get wet enough to slide off without disturbing the design. I chose a variety of the birds to fly across my nails (the base color is Sally Hansen Inst Dri Whirlwind White).



I think I did best on my pinky finger, but even then there's a spot where I yanked the paper off too soon. You can see how thin these are.



Once I had the tattoos on they had dried, I added my own step 6.5 to the instructions—color in missing parts with a Sharpie. Bad idea. Top coat smears Sharpie (at least the one I tried did). That left me with this mess after topcoat—totally my fault, not the Fake Tattoos:



Fortunately, Fake sent a variety of designs, so I can try again one day and I will be sure to leave the Sharpie be. I have nail art polishes I can use to touch up if needed but now that I know more about how these tatoos work, I probably won't need to.



You can buy these on the Fake Tattoos site for $9 for a set of two sheets. They ship for free worldwide. They also have bigger sizes for use on skin; that might be fun to combine nail tattoos with one on the back of the hand.

Have you used tattoos like this on your nails (or skin)? Do you see any designs you'd like to try from Fake?

The nail tattoos shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the tattoos for my own use.