Beauty

The Rihanna-Approved Tool That Lets Me Fake Being Good At Nail Art

Don’t sleep on this: Caption Polish Nail Art Screens

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Do you totally suck at painting your own nails? Do you find that you have no time to treat yourself to a biweekly manicure? Do your nails often look like crap? If you answered yes to these questions, then you and I have something in common. But I'm here to tell you that all our problems are over, and it's all thanks to Rihanna, of course.

Despite being endlessly frustrated with my nails, I hadn't discovered any secrets to the perfect easy and non-boring manicure until Rihanna’s go-to manicurist for her Fenty Puma shows, Greg Salo, and his brother, Habib, changed everything for me.

The two brothers run professional nail brand, Young Nails, with its beloved line of polishes, Caption. But, what’s even more awesome than the quick-drying, long-lasting polishes and topcoat effects are the Art Screen kits, a set of nail design plates and a stamper that leave you with an effortless—yet professional-looking—manicure that anyone would assume a true nail artist was behind.

And it’s changed the way I do my nails, forever.

It’s pretty hard to mess it up, even if you’re as bad at nails as I am. After applying the base color, you simply paint the section of the screen with your desired design with the polish color of your choice. Then, using the swiping card that comes in your kit, swipe the polish fully over the design, filling in the ridges of the screen. Next, stamp the Straight Shop Stamper over the painted section of the plate and then immediately stamp onto your finger to transfer the design. Use a Q-tip and polish remover to clean up any polish on the skin, apply a topcoat to seal the design in, and—voila—the perfect manicure.

It’s simple, it’s easy, and it takes 30 seconds per nail. It’s essentially magic. Now, when someone compliments my nails, I can smile and say, “Thanks, I did it myself!” And I'm not even lying! My next big endeavor? Layering them. (Still just as easy, I’m sure.)

Each kit comes with two plates yielding 24 different designs and the Straight Shot Stamper for $24.95 each at CaptionPolish.com. That’s not even the price of a full salon manicure these days, so consider this a true steal. Oh, and mark your calendars for February, because 12-pattern kits are coming to Ulta for only $12.50.