This Polish Guard Makes At-Home Manicures Easier Than Ever

Everyone knows the way to do an at-home pedicure is to slap paint all over your toe, then scrub the nail polish off your skin in the shower. I’m hyperbolizing, slightly. I do try to keep the polish on the nail and not my whole toe, but my toes are so small and so far away, and a nail brush in the shower does a great job of correcting mistakes. Fingers are another story. I, and others, see my hands more than my feet, and a messed up manicure is much harder to hide than a sloppy pedicure. That’s why, when I found out there was a product made to keep your cuticles and fingers clean while you applied nail polish, i knew I had to try it.

There are many such products available - basically paintable latex - but I went with Pueen Latex Tape. Not only does it work like a charm (once you get the hang of it, more on that later), it satisfies the part of my brain that likes to pick and peel at stuff. If you were a kid that put Elmer’s Glue on your hand so you could peel it off, latex cuticle tape is right up your alley.

There is a trick to using this, though. You can’t approach this like a slapdash pedicure that you’ll correct later with a hot shower and a nail brush. I first tried Pueen Latex Tape with that method, just to see how well this stuff worked, and it was an absolute failure.

You can’t just coat your cuticles in latex and throw polish over it and expect good results. You can see in the above photo, I started on my pinky and worked my way across my hand, and by the middle finger I was thinking, “Maybe this is a mistake” and tried to dial it back. But ALL my nails turned out looking bad and I had to remove all the polish and start over (Luckily, I had my nail polish remover clips at the ready).

The trick is to apply a THIN layer of the latex, and use a nail stick (I always have a pack of these around, but one comes with the Pueen Latex Tape) to push the latex off your nail and into the space between the nail and cuticle. The latex is sticky, and it can be hard to have it on your working hand and also paint your nails, so you may want to do one hand at a time. I’ve found that if I’m careful and don’t rush, i can easily have latex on both hands, and paint my nails, just fine. Once you’ve applied the latex, your nails should look like this:

Next you’ll apply polish. Don’t think the latex tape will save you, it will just make things neater. You still need to apply your polish slowly and carefully. I try to get as little as possible on the latex, and if I do get polish on my cuticle, I use the nail stick to make sure there’s a break between the polish and the latex, so when I take off the latex I don’t’ take my whole manicure with it.

Yes, I don’t know how to take a photo of my own hand

I like to remove the latex after I’ve done every coat of color, but before I add a top coat. I just want to be able to correct anything that gets messed up in the process, but do what works for you! For me, the easiest way to remove the latex is by taking a nail stick to lift up an area (be careful that you don’t push the stick into your fresh manicure) and then lifting that little nubbin of latex with a pair of tweezers. I can usually get the latex off in one piece, as long as I move slowly. Once all the latex is off, I check for any dings or smudges I may have created, correct them, then add a top coat. Here’s what my finish manicure looked like, without any extra skin/cuticle cleanup after the latex:

It’s basically perfect. Certainly good looking enough that I don’t feel like I’d need to hide my hands or immediately try to pick paint off my skin. Pueen also offers a latex-free version of this product, in case you have a sensitivity to latex. I will be using Pueen Latex Tape with every at-home manicure going forward, it eliminates the need for post-mani clean-up, and yes it’s one extra step, but it actually makes my manicure take less time.