After almost 20 years of wearing and making sparkly belly dance costumes, one problem always drove me crazy. And that’s these rhinestones snagging on fabric and ruining my favorite satin skirt and expensive silk veil. 

And this is a super common problem shared in Sparkly Belly’s Facebook group too. 

After lots of trial and error, I’ve found the 6 best and easiest ways to prevent rhinestones from snagging on fabric so you can prevent them from ripping your expensive belly dance skirts, veils, and even wedding dresses! Let’s get started!

6 BEST solutions to rhinestones snagging

1. Use pliers

First, the reason why rhinestones or rhinestone chain catches fabric is because of these prongs. These prongs keep the stones in these settings, but more inexpensive rhinestones or chain may have these prongs sticking out or may have wide gaps between the prongs and the stones.

So, in all cases, first try to find the rhinestone snagging on fabric, or feel for any prongs that are sticking out, and push down the prongs that are sticking out with pliers. I’m using a large rhinestone chain here so you can see what I’m doing, but likely yours is smaller, so usually you don’t need a lot of strength to do this. In fact, if you push too strongly, you can squish the whole setting, so do this gently. 

Once the prongs lay nice and flat on the stones, they won’t snag anymore. 

2. Fix problematic stones

Now when you look for prongs that are sticking out, you may notice a stone is not in the setting properly like this one. As you can see, the stone is crooked inside the setting.

This happens often too, and if this is the case for you, open up the prongs gently, and take the stone out. You can see, the setting itself has opened up here. Gently squeeze the setting to close the gap, place the stone back, and close the prongs.

If you find a setting with a missing stone, you can take a stone from elsewhere like if you have extra rhinestone chain or you could borrow one from a more inconspicuous part of your garment, and fill the empty setting. And remember to gently push down the prongs.

But if the setting is out of shape, it may be easier to just remove it. If it does not affect the look of your garment, you can leave it as is, or you can fill in the empty spot with a good stone. 

3. Cover the entire area with tulle

If it’s hard to locate exactly which one is causing the snagging, you could cover the entire area with tulle.

Tulle is this mesh-type fabric, and it’s translucent. 

The best part of this method is that you can cover a wide area quickly. You just cover the area that tends to snag like this, and I will have to just sew the ends on the wrong side of this belt, and we are good to go. The rhinestones don’t snag anymore. 

I forgot to remove the closure before adding the tulle in the above example. For yours, remove the closure first before covering the entire thing with tulle! And attach it again after the tulle is sewn on.

The drawback of this method is, it’s hard to cover oddly-shaped items. So this solution is best suited for a hemline of a skirt or covering straight rhinestone edges.

Also, the tulle does make the rhinestones sparkle less, so use this solution if you’re okay with that.

By the way, if you want to make your own belly dance belt or dress, have a look at Sparkly Belly All-Access Membership where you get access to all my courses, currently I have 18 of them and you can create your very own outfits that fit you. If you’re curious, check out at the link below!

Check out the All-Access Membership from here!

4. Clear nail polish

You’ve used the pliers and checked the prongs and settings, but your stones are still catching fabric… Then take clear nail polish.

And apply a coat of clear nail polish on each of your rhinestones, and wait until it’s dry. I’m using Essie’s top coat here. What this does, is the nail polish fills the gap between the prongs and stones, so fabric is less likely to catch. If 1 coat is not enough, try another one.

Many people are worried about how this affects the brightness of the stones. This may depend on the nail polish, but below is before and after. I honestly can’t tell much difference. In fact, the stones look clearer thanks to the nail polish. If you’re worried, test this in an inconspicuous part of your garment first.

This is a relatively fast solution that works well with small rhinestones. Just be careful not to get the polish on the fabric.

5. Rhinestone banding:

If you’re like, “I want to avoid rhinestones snagging my dress at all cost!” then skip using rhinestone chain in metal settings. Instead, use rhinestone banding on your garment. 

Rhinestone banding is the same type of stones set in plastic. As you can see, it does not have any sharp prongs or corners, so there’s nothing for fabric to catch on.

The only downside of this solution is, if you’re looking for a specific size or color, your options might be limited. I like to use SS20 for my stone size, and it was a little tricky to find. I purchased mine from here. And here is another source.

Also, you may or may not like how it looks. The banding is definitely not sparkly like the metal settings. But the stones are shiny, and you never have to worry about snagging.

6. Glue on or sew on rhinestones

Another way to avoid using rhinestone chain is to use glue on or sew on rhinestones. Don’t get the ones in settings, because you’ll have the same problems again. Just the stones.

Glue-on or sew-on rhinestones come with no setting whatsoever, so again, there’s nothing for delicate fabric to catch on. 

Simply take rhinestone glue to glue on the stones, or take a needle and thread and sew on the rhinestones.

Every dress, every dance outfit is different, so I suggest you try a solution that works for the particular situation, and you could mix some of these solutions. That way you can fix the rhinestones snagging problem and preserve the design as much as possible!

And if you liked this tutorial, you might enjoy my tutorial on how to glue on rhinestones quickly and neatly using a glue syringe. 

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Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!

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