Burberry plaid nail art design: Striping tape manicure tutorial for beginners

I've been meaning to do a Burberry nail art design ever since I swatched the Burberry Lip Mist lipsticks. The Burberry tartan is striking and there are too many knock-offs of the famous plaid, which was first spotted in the 1920s, as the lining to the trademark Burberry trench coat before featuring on outfits, shoes, bags and scarves.

You can easily replicate the check-pattern on your nails with a nail art pen or long brush, and pair the manicure with a black outfit or with your favourite Burberry dress. I decided to use some of the striping tape I got from eBay for $2.50 including postage (for 12 colours). This is equally easy and leaves no room for errors, even for those with unsteady hands or those who came last in drawing classes *me*. Striping nail art involves just three steps - Cut, Place and Trim!

Here's how you can do a Burberry manicure with striping tape.

What you need for the Burberry plaid nail art:

1. Striping tape in black, white and red
2. A pair of sharp, curved scissors
3. A pair of tweezers
4. A camel, neutral, taupe or light brown/fawn base colour nail polish
5. Top coat (Rimmel Pro Super Wear, for me)

Here is the step-by-step tutorial for a Burberry manicure using striping tape:

1. Apply your base coat. Mine is Rimmel All White Now (reviewed and swatched).
2. Now, apply two coats of your base colour. I picked O.P.I. San Tan Tonio since "Camel" makes me think of tanned neutral and San Tan Tonio is the best tan neutral I own. It is a glorious light, pale brown creme from the Texas Collection and you get full opacity in two or even one coat, with minimal streaking.

The photographs are in natural light, in the shadow and in direct sunlight, respectively. It appears more taupe in the shadows, as you can see below, and more yellow-brown in direct sunlight, as you can see even further below.

3. Wait for the base colour to dry very thoroughly, in order to prevent errors.

4. To begin the tartan pattern, reach for the black tape first. You are commencing the Cut-Place-Trim method now.

5. Cut out a decent length with the sharp scissors - around double the width of your nail, to compensate for curling and creasing.

6. Place the tape from one side of the nail to the other. You can do this with the scissors if you're nimble enough, but it is better to use the tweezers.

7. Smooth down the tape with the curve of the scissors.

8. Curving the scissors towards the excess tape, gently trim any extra bits, being careful not to chop off half the tape! If there is excess left and you find it difficult to trim it, leave it - you can get it together with the following strip soon!

9. Once you have your black horizontal stripe ready, place a white stripe just above it.

10. Place another black stripe above the white, and another white strip and another black strip - it should look like this, from tip downwards: Black, white, black, white, black.

11. Got that? Good. Now we're going vertical.

12. Place two vertical black stripes OVER the horizontal pattern, so you get checks. Don't add a white stripe in between because this is tape and not a nail art pen, so you'll end up having no checks.

13. Something missing, you think? Well spotted; Burberry plaid includes a red line somewhere.

14. So add a horizontal and a vertical red stripe each, crossing a little away from the other checks, so as not to take away from them.

15. Now reach for your favourite piece from Burberry and photograph your nails alongside!

Wasn't that easy? No faffing about with brushes and unsteady hands. You can pick any base colour from cream to taupe. Now for the catch - because my striping tape is super-cheap, whenever I wear topcoat, the colours run, as you can see from the side of my thumbnail. Not on the black and the white, but the red turns to silver when I apply topcoat, so I've photographed these without topcoat, in natural light and in direct sunlight. I haven't experimented with other topcoats yet, but have a feeling matte topcoats will let the tape retains its colour. Let's see!

Always keep by spare bits as place-markers, as it is very difficult to find your place in the tape roll. I'm you'll find the Cut-Place-Trim method of striping tape nail art easy!

This is my entry to the Nail Art For Nubs link-up hosted by Leticia of Cosmetics Aficionado. You can get the InLinkz code here and participate as often as you like :)