Jamberry Nail Wraps – A Tutorial and Review

Several months ago I was contact by Crissie, a Jamberry Consultant, who asked me if I would like to try out some of the Jamberry Nail Wraps and share my thoughts with you all. I’ve heard a lot about these nail wraps on the internet and feel like I knew about Jamberry before nail wraps started showing up in the drugstore or Ulta. But knowing all that, I had never tried any type of nail wrap before. So of course I said yes!

The idea that you don’t have to wait for your nails to dry was really appealing to me. And the fact that you can have fancy nail art without the stress and headache of trying to get your hand to stop shaking long enough to try drawing a flower freestyle. 😛

About Jamberry Nail Wraps

The story of Jamberry Nails begins with three sisters who possess distinct personal tastes, but share a love for style. After an expensive afternoon together at the nail salon, Lyndsey, Christy and Keri vowed to find a simpler, more cost effective way to keep their hands looking polished, while still spending time together.

After lots of trial and error, the proprietary nail wraps of Jamberry Nails launched in late 2010. The DIY, at-home application and incredible variety of designs caught on quickly and sales soared. A new era of nail art was born.

Gone are the days of nails that chip and flake after only a few days! Gone are the days of the single colored manicure. Gone are the mani/pedis that take all afternoon and most of your cash too! Jamberry nail wraps arm you with style and confidence while demanding very little of your time or money.

Check out Jamberry’s website HERE

Application Tutorial

Prep Your Nails

I didn’t snap a picture of this step (thought it would be a bit boring, just showing my bare nails, lol) but make sure you prep your nails before you start applying the wraps. Clip and file your nails, push back the cuticles, and clean the surface of your nail with an alcohol wipe. Now you’re all set!

Select Your Wraps

You’re going to need a nail dryer to apply these wraps. But if you’re like me (and don’t have that) you can use a hair dryer. Also make sure you measure all the wraps against your nails and select which ones you’re going to use. That way when you start the process, you can move quickly and apply all the wraps without a bunch of time wasted going back and forth picking the wraps. 🙂

Peel the Wraps

As I mention in the picture, I messed up here and used my fingers. It was mostly for the sake of the picture — I couldn’t figure out how to hold the orangewood stick, the sticker, AND take a good picture of it all. 🙂 But, anywho, just try not to touch the sticky side of the nail wrap to make sure none of the oils from your hands weaken the strength of the stickers. 🙂

So use that orangewood stick and peel the wrap off it’s base. Cut the wrap in half with some little scissors (save the other half for another nail).

Heat and Press on Wrap

Now is the moment of truth! You need to heat up the wrap for about 5 seconds and then place the nail wrap on your nail and press down firmly — moving to all edges of your nails to press out air bubbles. This step is important, and one that takes a bit of a learning curve – in my opinion – so be patient with yourself. The second time I applied wraps was much better than my first time. Oh, and if you have a friend, it’s lots easier to do it each others nails than your own. So there’s a little tip. 🙂

Trim & Reheat to Set

I use the little scissors, once again, to trim away the extra nail wrap as close to my nail as possible. If needed, grab your trusty nail file and that will help smooth the edges. Though make sure you’re filing in a downward motion so you’re not pulling the edges of the wrap up.

Repeat on All Nails!

That’s about it, now all you have to do is repeat that to the other 9 nails. 🙂

What do you think about the process? Pretty simple, no? Now let’s dive into the knitty-gritty of my thoughts.

My Review

As I mentioned briefly above, I feel that there is a pretty distinct learning curve when it comes to applying these nail wraps. I’ve now applied them about 5 times (twice to myself, and the rest on my mom and sisters) and I definitely saw myself getting quicker at it and the results looking better. So you can’t quit if the results the first time aren’t as perfect as the pictures on the Jamberry website. Practice makes perfect.

Even though I took longer the first time I applied these, I definitely think it was faster than painting your nails the traditional way. There’s no need to layer, wait between layers, or wait for your nails to full dry. That’s the biggest plus, in my opinion, for these nail wraps.

Now with all that said….I have to sum up my thoughts about Jamberry Nail Wraps by saying that I really don’t like them.

Let me clarify to you why these don’t work for me personally. I have this habit (not the best habit, I know) that whenever my nail polish starts to peel at the edges, I have to pick it all off my nail. Have to. I can’t help myself, it just drives me crazy to have the edges coming up and catching on everything, and before I realize it I’ve picked off the majority of my polish.

So, if you can imagine how I am with normal polishes….it’s even worse with wraps, as I soon found out. Because the moment the edges started to loosen and come up (which didn’t take long, for me), I’m wanting to peel the whole sticker off. The first time I applied these to my nails, it wasn’t 24 hours later that several of my nails were totally bare.

The picture above is the second time I applied the wraps to my nails and, as you can see, instead of giving into the urge to pick the wraps off, I took my little scissors and clipped off the edge that was coming up. Not sure how fabulous that made my nails look, but it helped the wraps to last several days longer on my nails. But that’s the only way I could get them to last longer than a day on my nails.

Obviously, if they only last a day, they’re not really worth the effort, for me, to put them on. So for me the whole ‘nail wrap’ is a dud. Again, let me preface that this is because of my bad habit. I put these nail wraps on both my mom and sister, and they wore it several days longer than I ever could and liked the results a lot better.

I think this really comes down to personal preference as to whether or not you’d like nail wraps. If you don’t have a habit like I do and like to keep your nails short and aren’t hard on your hands, you’d probably love this time saver. And they have such fun designs!

Now that you’ve heard my thoughts, I want to hear YOURS. Have you tried these Jamberry nails, or any nail wraps? Do you love them? Hate them?

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I received one or more of the products mentioned above from Crissie in the hopes that I would mention them on my blog. Regardless, this does not guarantee a review or feature on my blog. I only share information that I think will be useful for my readers and I only review products I have personally used. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.