Piping Tips Guide: Find the Right Decorating Tip
Not sure which piping tip you need? Candyland Crafts carries over 200 cake decorating tips in different shapes, sizes and styles. Instead of making you search through tip numbers one by one, we organize piping tips by the decorating effect they create.
Whether you want to pipe writing, stars, rosettes, flowers, leaves, ruffles, grass, basketweave or vintage Lambeth details, use this guide to find the right piping tip for your project.
Shop Piping Tips by What You Want to Create
Writing & Dots Piping Tips
Round piping tips are some of the most versatile decorating tips. Use them for writing, lettering, outlines, dots, pearls, beads, stringwork and fine details. Smaller openings create delicate lines and details, while larger round tips make bold dots, borders and thicker lines.
Best for: writing, dots, pearls, outlines, stringwork, beads and detail work.
Stars & Swirls Piping Tips
Star tips create ridged designs and are among the most popular tips for cake and cupcake decorating. Depending on the size and shape of the opening, they can make stars, shells, swirls, rosettes, ropes and decorative borders. Open star, closed star and French star tips each create a different finished effect.
Best for: stars, shells, rosettes, cupcake swirls, borders, ropes and vintage piping.
Drop Flower Piping Tips
Drop flower tips are designed to create flowers with a simple squeeze-and-release motion. The shaped opening forms multiple petals at once, making these tips an easy way to add small buttercream flowers to cakes, cupcakes and cookies.
Best for: one-squeeze flowers, swirled flowers, floral borders, flower clusters and small flower accents.
Petal & Ruffle Piping Tips
Petal and ruffle tips create some of the most beautiful buttercream details. Use them for roses, flower petals, ruffles, ribbons, frills, swags and layered borders. Different opening shapes and sizes let you create everything from delicate petals to dramatic ruffled designs.
Best for: roses, flower petals, ruffles, ribbons, bows, swags, frills and vintage cake decorating.
Leaf Piping Tips
Leaf tips create pointed, curved or textured leaves with a simple piping motion. They're useful for adding foliage to buttercream flowers as well as creating vines, borders and decorative details.
Best for: leaves, foliage, vines, floral arrangements and buttercream flower decorating.
Basketweave & Ribbon Piping Tips
Basketweave and ribbon tips have flat, smooth or ridged openings that create strips of buttercream. Use them to make woven basket patterns, ribbons, bands, textured borders and dimensional cake details.
Best for: basketweave, ribbons, bands, borders and textured buttercream designs.
Grass, Texture & Multi-Opening Piping Tips
Multi-opening piping tips pipe several strands of icing at the same time. They're especially useful when you need to cover an area quickly or create realistic texture.
Best for: grass, fur, hair, strings, flower centers and textured decorating.
Specialty Piping Tips
Some decorating tips create shapes that don't fit neatly into traditional categories. Specialty piping tips include unusual openings designed for distinctive borders, multiple lines, dimensional details and creative buttercream effects.
Best for: unique borders, specialty shapes, dimensional details and creative piping techniques.
Lambeth & Vintage Cake Piping Tips
Lambeth decorating is a style of cake decorating, not a single type of piping tip. That's why our Lambeth & Vintage Cake Piping Tips collection brings together carefully selected tips from several piping categories.
Lambeth-style cakes often combine shells, swags, strings, ruffles, scrolls, pearls, rosettes and layered borders. A decorator may use star tips for shells and borders, round tips for strings and pearls, petal and ruffle tips for frills and swags, and specialty tips for dimensional overpiping.
If you're decorating your first Lambeth cake, start with several different shapes and sizes rather than buying multiple tips that create nearly identical effects.
Shop Lambeth & Vintage Cake Piping Tips →
How to Find the Piping Tip You Need
1. Start With the Effect You Want to Create
You don't need to know a piping tip number. Start with the finished look you want. Want rosettes or shells? Browse star tips. Need ruffles? Look at petal and ruffle tips. Making grass or fur? Look for a multi-opening tip.
2. Search by Tip Number
If you already know the tip number, use the Candyland Crafts search bar. Try searching the brand and number together, such as Ateco 21, Wilton 1M or Loyal 104.
3. Don't Get Stuck on the Brand
If you know a tip from one brand, you may be able to find a similar tip from another manufacturer. Candyland Crafts carries piping tips from brands including Ateco, Wilton, Loyal, Bakery Crafts and others.
Tip numbering is not always identical between manufacturers, so compare the opening shape, opening size and finished piping effect instead of relying only on the number.
4. Shop by Decorating Style
If you're trying to create a particular style of cake rather than one specific piping effect, start with one of our curated collections. Our Lambeth & Vintage Cake Piping Tips collection, for example, combines several types of tips commonly used together for vintage buttercream decorating.
Frequently Asked Questions About Piping Tips
What piping tip makes rosettes?
Open star and closed star piping tips are commonly used for buttercream rosettes. The size of the opening determines how large and bold the finished rosette will be. Browse our Stars & Swirls Piping Tips to compare options.
What piping tip makes shells?
Star piping tips are commonly used to create shell borders. Small star tips make delicate shells and detail work, while larger tips create fuller, more prominent shell borders.
What piping tip makes grass?
A grass or multi-opening piping tip creates several thin strands of icing at once. These tips can also be used to create fur, hair, strings and other textured effects.
What piping tips are used for Lambeth cakes?
Lambeth cakes typically use several types of decorating tips rather than one specific tip. Star tips create shells and borders, round tips create strings and pearls, petal and ruffle tips create frills and swags, and specialty tips create dimensional overpiping and decorative details. Shop our Lambeth & Vintage Cake Piping Tips for tips selected specifically for these techniques.
What is the difference between an open star and a closed star piping tip?
Both have pointed openings that create ridged piping. An open star tip has teeth that flare outward, while a closed star tip has teeth that curve inward toward the center. The different openings change the definition and texture of the finished stars, shells, swirls and rosettes.
Do piping tip numbers mean the same thing for every brand?
Not necessarily. Tip numbering can vary between manufacturers. When you're looking for an alternative to a piping tip you already use, compare the opening shape, size and finished piping result rather than relying only on the number.
Which piping tips should a beginner buy?
A useful starter assortment includes a round tip, a small and medium star tip, a petal or ruffle tip and a leaf tip. These basic shapes let you create writing, dots, shells, stars, rosettes, ruffles, petals, leaves and borders.
Shop Piping Tips at Candyland Crafts
Whether you're looking for one specific decorating tip or building a complete piping collection, Candyland Crafts makes it easier to shop by the result you want to create. Compare piping tip shapes, sizes and styles for buttercream cakes, cupcakes, cookies and other decorating projects.
Shop individual decorating tips from Ateco, Wilton, Loyal, Bakery Crafts and other brands, or explore our curated collections to find the right piping tips for your decorating style.