How to make a manicure at home – stylish, beautiful, fashionable. Step by step instructions with photos

The development of the nail industry, as well as a large number of video lessons, allows anyone to make their own manicure at home. For a modern woman, well-groomed nails are as important an appearance detail as neat makeup or hair styling.

In recent years, the nail fashion has moved further away from long, extended nails, passing the palm to short-cut nails. The market of manicure accessories offers the owners of short nails the widest selection of design solutions for every taste and occasion.

The choice of form for short nails

For short nails, it is not always easy to choose the right shape. There are several useful recommendations for this:

•  Experts recommend paying attention to the structure of the cuticle. The shape of the free edge should be close to its structure. This creates an optical balance, and the nail plate looks more natural.
• For short nails, it is not recommended to choose a square shape. This form of the upper edge of the nail visually shortens not only the nail itself, but also the arm as a whole. The oval will become an ideal form for short nails; it visually lengthens the nail plate. Also often nail masters recommend to owners of short nails the almond-shaped form of filing of the free edge.

How to care for cuticles

The most important condition for the beauty and health of the hands and nails is proper care of the cuticle. Masters strongly recommend removing the cuticle body, because often this area not only becomes rougher and unaesthetic, but can burst, causing significant pain. In addition, truncation of the cuticle lengthens the nail plate, so it is recommended for owners of short nails.

To facilitate the work with the cuticle, nail masters recommend holding baths for the hands. At home, you can remove the cuticle with the help of nail clippers.

You can also slide and raise the edge of the cuticle with an orange stick and cut with sharp, rounded scissors.

At home, the cuticle can be softened with fruit acids, which greatly facilitate the further process of removing the cuticle body.

Today, hardware manicure has gained great popularity. Such a manicure to make at home is very easy.

Using cutters, it is painless and not traumatic to make the cuticle perfectly even. On sale there are not only professional devices for salons, but also small sets for home care.

Do not forget that the cuticle zone requires regular care and nutrition with oils. There are special oil and vitamin cocktails on sale that are sold in an ergonomic tube handle with a brush.

Tools for manicure at home.

Of course, for manicure at home, you can buy all the same tools as in the salons of the nail service. But for many, the basic set will suffice:

The basic element is manicure scissors. They can be of any manufacturer, the main thing is that their blades are sharp and the cutting edge rounded.

Not only nails can not do without a nail file. It is advisable to purchase a set of files for different types of filing and grinding.

Cosmetic nippers and orange sticks. Orange sticks allow you to move the cuticle, they can be replaced with a reusable, metal scapula. Nippers will help get rid of burrs and cuticle skin.

This basic set can be replenished with many other elements, but the sterility of devices remains the most important condition.

Instrument sterilization at home

Manicure tools need to be cleaned, even if they are used within the home or used by just one person. Indeed, often there are macro- and microdamages on hand.

In addition to soapy water and warm water, tools are recommended to be treated with alcohol-containing liquids. On sale you can find special solutions for disinfecting the surface of tools.

For heat treatment, metal tools should be held in boiling water for about 20 minutes. You can also simply spray the instruments with water heated to 50 – 32°F.

Useful baths as a preparatory stage

After processing the working tools, you can begin to prepare your hands and nails.

Manicure at home is a process in which all stages of preparation are important. One of the main is soaking hands in the bath. This procedure allows you to take care of your skin, soften the cuticle to facilitate further processing, and soften an excessively hard nail plate. In addition, the bathtubs relax your hands very well, turning the manicure process into a pleasant spa treatment.

 The process includes several basic steps:

1. Choose a small dish and pour 100,4 – 104°F in hot water. If the water is too hot, you should not burn the skin, you just have to keep your hands in the water longer. It is possible to purchase special baths for hands of a physiologically comfortable form.
2. In the water, you can add decoctions of herbs or oil. Herbal baths can disinfect and heal injuries on the hands, while oil baths perfectly soften rough skin areas.
3. It is recommended that you keep your hands in the bath until the water has cooled. Estimated time procedure from 15 to 25 minutes
4. After the time has passed, dab your hands with a napkin or a terry towel and spread the skin on your hands with a moisturizer. If after the baths it is planned to cover the nail plate, then the nail must be treated with a remover.

Glycerin baths are especially popular among craftsmen and their customers, especially since they are easy to make at home. To do this, add 2 tablespoon of warm water to 1 tablespoon of glycerin, one teaspoon of ammonia, you can also add a decoction of herbs if desired.

It is important to remember that before the hardware manicure baths are not done.

What manicure can be done at home

The simplest is a cut manicure. For its implementation, a minimum of tools and a minimum of skills will be required. The first stage involves soaking hands in the bath.

At the second stage, experts recommend moving and cutting the cuticle, having previously cleaned all pterygium from under it.

The third stage involves filing the free edge of the nail.

In conclusion, you can cover the nail with colored or transparent varnish, or simply grease with a nourishing cream.

Classic manicure: walkthrough

For women who want to know how to make a manicure at home, the following step-by-step instruction is presented:

1. Treat hands with an antiseptic, if desired, soften hands in water.
2. Work the free edge area with a nail file
3. Excise the cuticle area and clean the thin skin of pterygium.
4. Coat the nail with varnish or gel polish, if desired, you can create a unique design. When working with nail platinum, degrease it, especially if a bath with oils was previously made.

Choice of color for short nails

Short nails are a fashionable trend today, however, with such a long nail, you should be careful when choosing a color for your nails. An incorrectly selected color scheme can emphasize all the shortcomings, making the nails sloppy and the hands unattractive.

Of course, you should give preference to flesh-colored colors that are most suitable for the color of the skin on your hands. There are many nude colors with a pink, beige or even pale lilac shade. Restrained and elegant on short nails, a gray shade of varnish looks.

All these colors give the hands a well-groomed look and will become appropriate both at home and at work. But what to do if you want a holiday and bright colors, can the owners of short nails completely refuse bright and interesting shades

For a long time it was believed that short nails should not be emphasized with bright colored varnish. But now the nail fashion has fundamentally changed this belief, scarlet red, the color of dark cherry, has become one of the basic colors for short nails.

A bright accent in the overall image of a woman will be a deep blue nail or even metallic silver. The main thing is that the colors are monotonous and have a uniform coating.

Masters do not recommend applying neon colors to short nails, they significantly shorten the nail plate and look unnatural.

Features of applying ordinary varnish

No matter how correctly the nail is processed, and no matter how the color solution is correctly chosen, the main condition for a good manicure will be the correct application of varnish on the nail.

Here are the main recommendations of the guru of the nail industry:

• Basic coverage required! The base allows you to smooth the surface of the nail plate and create a perfectly even coating, in addition, with the base, any coating will last longer. Often, after removing budget colored varnishes, the nail plate acquires an unhealthy yellow color, the presence of a base coating can eliminate this problem.
• It is important to paint the nail carefully, without bald spots and painted over cuticles. The correct painting algorithm is simple: the first path of the brush with varnish starts from the base of the nail, the next two are held along the nail rollers.
• Only after thoroughly drying the first layer is it possible to apply the second. To get the color “like in a tube”, you have to paint the nail in 2-3 layers. When working with short nails, do not put too much varnish on the brush.
• Top coat is recommended. It allows the varnish to last longer on the nails, but it should be applied with a thin layer, otherwise the nail plate will seem too thick.
• At all stages of painting, the end side of the nail should be sealed, since the varnish coating begins to break off and peel off from the free edge of the nail.

Shellac Application: A Step-by-Step Guide

Every year, the fashion for shellac is gaining ever greater momentum. Work with this coating is not difficult. How to make such a manicure at home is described in detail in the following guide:

 Here’s how to make such a manicure:

1. After carrying out all the preliminary work (filing the free edge and trimming the cuticle), degrease the nail. This can be done using a primer or a liquid with acetone. For better grip, it is also recommended that you pass a low-buff buff on the nail plate.
2. We cover the nail base. Many bases are quite liquid, so it is important to be careful to avoid flowing under the cuticle and side rollers.
3. We put the painted nails in the UV or ice lamp for about 1 minute. Remove the sticky layer with a remover or nail polish remover.
4. Apply a color coating and bake again in the lamp. The polymerization time can be different, it depends on the manufacturer of gel polish and color. The rays of the lamp penetrate worse through the dark shades of varnish and it takes more time to bake them. If the coating is still liquid, you should return the nails to the lamp for a longer time. Colored gel polish can be applied in several layers, but each of them needs to be well dried. At this stage, you can apply any design.
5. The final step is to apply a topcoat. We also send it under ultraviolet light for 1 minute. If necessary, remove the sticky layer with a remover.

And a few more tips from experts:

1. • It is better to use a rubber base and top. The rubber in the composition allows the coating to be more plastic and thereby prolongs the duration of gel polish wear.
   • Each layer of the product (base, gel polish, top) should be dried as well as possible, otherwise the gel coating will quickly leave.
   • Correction of product streaks under the side rollers or cuticles after baking in the lamp cannot be removed, therefore, special protection around the nail should be used (“pink thing”, etc.)

Features of the choice of design for short nails

Designing a design on short nails requires more concentration and experience, but given some of the nuances you can make the perfect manicure at home.

The basic rule in the design of short nail plates: “Do not overload the nail.” If the drawing is applied with a brush, then all the details of the image should be drawn in clear, but thin lines.

For this, varnishes of contrasting colors are well suited. All design elements should be small in size, starting with rhinestones and ending with translated or finished drawings. If the pattern is stamped and it is impossible to reduce it, then nail designers use individual elements of the composition.

Design Instruction

Each design technique in nail art has its own subtleties and features. But there are basic rules:

• Professional craftsmen use only well-pigmented paints. Paints with weak pigmentation will only spoil the overall image of manicure.
• For fixing design elements only good glue is used. It not only firmly fastens the
  decoration, but also, when dried, becomes transparent and invisible.

Classic French

Classic jacket is the most popular type of design both in beauty salons and when creating manicures at home. You can draw a smile line yourself, or you can use stencils.

The latest fashion trend has become a jacket with the use of colored varnishes. For example, a combination of a blue base and a silver free edge is a relevant and fashionable solution.

Moon manicure

Lunar manicure is designed to whiten the area of the nail hole by drawing it with varnish. Often, the outline of the hole is combined with coloring the free edge of the nail, although this is not necessary.

Lunar manicure, like a jacket, can be presented both as a classic and in a bright color palette.

Sliders

Sliders became the new word in simplifying the nail design. These ready-made drawings can be placed both fragmentary on individual nails and completely on all nail plates.

There are two types of sliders:

• Thin sliders are placed in water and the drawing itself moves away from the base, it remains only to carefully place it on the surface. But carefully, such sliders are very torn.
• Thickened sliders have an adhesive base and are suitable for a smooth nail surface. But they are extremely difficult to damage.

Stencils

There are 2 types of stencils on the market: classic, for French manicure and design, with a patterned slot of snowflakes, funnels and more.

Let’s consider in more detail how to make a manicure at home using stencils:

• First, you need to cover the nail with the base color. The color can be any, the main thing is that it differs from the second coating layer.
• Secondly, we will place the stencil on the desired revenge. If this is a designer stencil, then just cover everything with contrasting varnish. If the stencil is of a classical type, then we paint only the free edge of the nail along the border of the sticker.
• After complete drying, the stencil is removed. All this is covered with a layer of transparent top.

Stamping

Another invention of nail art was the transfer of a pattern from a metal plate using a gel stamp. Stamping will help owners of short nails to create a unique design with their own hands in a matter of minutes.

Specialists recommend that women with short nails choose plates with a small pattern or an abstract pattern, because many engravings are quite large and may simply not fit on a small nail.

It is often difficult to transfer a small drawing to a short nail plate, for this, nail service professionals use stamps with a transparent bottom.

For stamping, it is important to use only thick, well-pigmented varnishes or paints. In the absence of a special varnish, you can leave the tube you like open for 20 minutes and the varnish will get the desired consistency. The greatest visual effect will be achieved due to the contrast of the colors of the base and pattern.

Sparkles

Sequins in the design of nails create brightness and festivity. They can cover all the nail plates and get a stunning holiday effect or highlight individual areas in the composition on the nail. A popular trend today is stretch sequins. For the design of short nails, sequins are used neatly and in small quantities.

Rhinestones

A design with rhinestones always looks interesting and bright, and rhinestones on short nails can look very stylish if you follow a few basic rules. For small nail plates, experts recommend choosing the smallest diameter of the rhinestone. Neil masters do not recommend overloading short nails with many rhinestones.

There are several options for unobtrusive and sophisticated design of short nails using rhinestones:

• Rhinestones can be laid out on the border of various colors, which will give the transition line a special appeal.
• Many nail artists offer designs where rhinestones are attached one on each nail.
• Experts do not advise: Combining a bright, flashy design with a lot of rhinestones, this may look vulgar and inappropriate. Therefore, you need to choose one thing.

Matte manicure

Another interesting design technique is a matte manicure. It is created by coating with a special top. The contrast between the glossy and matte finish looks especially impressive. Masters suggest making the matte not the entire nail plate, but only individual details. You can paint several nails with a matte top, and leave the rest with gloss.

Gradient

Gradient is a fashionable and stylish trend today. For short nails, masters recommend choosing a vertical gradient over a classic horizontal gradient. In this case, the gradient line visually lengthens the nail.

Also, an excellent solution for short nails is to apply a gradient coating not to all nails, but only to one or two, while the rest can be coated in a monotonous color.

Especially popular was the baby boomer gradient. This technique is performed in nude tones. It is perfect for owners of short nail plates, making them look well-groomed and healthy, while not visually shortening the length. So, doing a manicure at home, you can significantly save money and time.

In addition, creating their own unique designs, any woman is able to reveal the talented nail master in herself.

Video clips: how to make a manicure

Instructions on how to make a manicure at home:

How to make a gradient manicure at home: