Nail strips and wraps

Salon silk and fiberglass wraps

Thin fabric is glued over the nail to strengthen or repair it. Refinery29 lists silk wrap nail extensions on salon menus.

Polish strips and stickers

Peel-and-stick color for at home. Dashing Diva says its Gloss strips need no LED lamp.

Semi-cured gel strips

These are real gel polish, cured to about 60 per cent into a flexible sticker. You stick one on, cure it under a lamp for at least one minute, then trim and file. BeautyCrew says they last roughly two weeks, and they come off by lifting the edge with a wooden stick soaked in acetone.

Brands include Dashing Diva Glaze, which needs an LED lamp, and ohora Gel Strips. Sally Beauty now gives semi-cured gel nail strips a category of their own.

Not the same as Shellac wraps

Polishpedia’s older Shellac Wraps page is about something else: CND’s foil remover wraps, which hold acetone on the nail while Shellac comes off.

Shellac Wraps

Silk wraps are a salon service, so look for a nail salon near you; for strips, try the color on a drawn hand first.

✦ Try a look on a hand

Find a nail salon near you