It’s possible to give yourself a home manicure with a professional touch if you follow a proper manicure procedure. With a DIY manicure, you can experiment with new colors and even try one of the new natural nail products not always available in a salon. And, you will save money!
Manicure Procedure Steps
- Shape your nails to a desired length using an emery board (preferred over a metal file). Always file using one-direction strokes beginning from the corner and working towards the middle of your nail. Resist using a “sawing” motion as this will weaken your nails.
- Clean hands and nails. Use a nail brush to clean under your nails and around the cuticle area. Remove any old nail polish. Soak your nails for a few minutes in warm water with a touch of olive oil and a few drops of fresh lemon juice. Dry your hands thoroughly.
- Using an orange stick, gently push back your cuticles to reveal the half moon white area. Your cuticles protect your nail bed and are important for healthy for nail growth.
- Place your hand on a flat surface and apply a base coat. This clear coat prevents your nails from staining. The base coat also allows the next layer of polish to go on smoothly.
- Using one brushstroke in the middle of your nail, begin to apply your colored polish. Follow up with brushstrokes on each side of your nail.
- After the color has completely dried, apply a second coat of colored polish using the same manicure procedure.
- When the second coat has dried, apply a clear top coat polish to seal the polish layers underneath.
- inish with a hand moisturizer working it into your cuticles.
Other Manicure Tips
- Always allow your nail polish to dry completely before moving on to the next step!
- Use a nail buffer to soften any nail ridges using the same motion as with a nail file.
- If your cuticles are thick, another manicure procedure step is to use a cuticle cream in combination with an orange stick. (Follow the directions on the tube.)
- Nail fungus is a horror to cure, and if you have ever had one, be sure to use formaldehyde and tourmaline-free polish products to prevent fungus growth.
- Hang nails are common, broken pieces of dry skin that can appear on the sides of the nail. When disturbed, a hangnail can become painful and even infected. If you have one, cut it close to the skin using a very sharp, fine scissor. Then keep the hangnail moist with regular use of a moisturizer.
Here is a list of products that would be found in a basic manicure kit.
- Hand sanitiser - Liquid, gel or wash. This would b used arter the hands have been washed to control the spread of pathogens (GERMS! Ergh) and reduce the risk of cross-infection.
- Cuticle cream - Used to soften the cuticle and surrounding tissue ready for cutical work on your client. Personally i get BOTH the cream and the oil, use the cream before cuticle treatment and put the oil on at the end of the manicure to hydrate the cuticle.
- Base coat - this is important whenever you apply a polish. It stops the colour from staining the natural nail. Especially when using colours such as blue, green and orange. I use OPI base coat, again it can be found on Amazon for around £8.
- Top coat - This stops/protects the polish from chipping, peeling and scratching and also adds great shine and finish to the nail. Again i use OPI.
- Polishes - We all know what a nail polish does, it enhances the look of the nail. Great Nail Lacquer brands are, OPI, Nars, China Glaze.
- Polish remover - I'd recommend a non-accetone remover as its less drying to the natural nail.
- Soaking solution - A great product used to moisturise and soften the skin in prep for the mani! any soaking solution does the job! Shop around to get ones with different scents etc.
- Buffing creams - Use along with you Chamois buffer . These kind of creams usually contain some pumice which helps buff down somme ridges and bring the nail to a high shine.
- Cuticle removers - usually a clear liquid that contains a bleeching agent to help soften and remove non-living, excess tissue around the cuticle area. MUST be used with care & ONLY in the cuticle area.
- Hardeners & strenghteners - These are used a base coat or on thier own, again they need to be used with care as they contain strong ingrediants which can dehydrate your natural nail.
For you girls just getting into the Nail Tech buisness id advise visiting http://www.beautyexpress.co.uk/category-Strictly-Professional-Mani-NAISTP.htm You can get most of your mani products here for cheap prices and once youve experimented you can go on to using more expensive products if you wish.
For all you professionals i recommend the OPI Envy range. Sallys salon services do great student and trade prices and you can get OPI for £6 a bottle and to top it off they do VAT free days so you can buy products even cheaper :D!! However im yet to find opi actually on the website, but in my local shop theres always plenty of OPI products!
So i guess a good place to start would be to share what iv learnt so far? (minus all the boring stuff of course!)
So here goes..
How to achieve the perfect manicure.
When doing a manicure the most important thing is your tools. The range of tools and equipment available for manicure treatments is vast and exciting!! Its important that all tools are of a good quality and are always kept clean and steralised before each client.
Tools you will need :
- Natural nail file - Ok girls so,Never use anything less than a 240 grit file on the natural nile, any grit about this will damage the nail & you'll have some really Pee'd off customers!!
- Natural nail buffer - There's various buffers that you can use, i'd say the two main ones are Chamois buffer & The graduated buffer file. Buffers dont just increase shine on the nail, they increase the blood circulation to that area! Just be careful not to get carried away an over buff as this will cause a heat reaction.
- Cuticle nippers - We all get them annoying tiny peices of skin at the side of our nail from time to time, i cant explain why they hurt as much as they do but when coosing your nipper go for stainless steel, easy to steralise and there usually the best quality aswell.
- Cuticle knife - Again good quality, & stainless steel for the same reason as about BUT one slight difference, ALWAYS use this tool with either water or cuticle remover, to prevent from scratching the natural nail plate surface and other minor damage that can be caused!
- Cuticle pusher - These can be plastic or stainless steel, theres no real difference between them, and they can both be steralised easily. In my opinion the stainless steel pusher is a better investment as it will last longer.
- Nail scissors - Nail scissors shourls always be very fine and curved. Its a good idea to use good quality scissors and only to use them for cutting nails, using them for anything else will blunt the blades. The Friskars scissors to the left can be bought on Amazon.
- Dish for clients jewellery - This is a must have if you want your client to feel safe and comfortable. Using a small dish for the belongings will ensure good security and enable your client to relax and enjoy her mani!!
There's always going to be disposables that you will need to perform a manicure, the things you will need are:
- Cotton wool - some professionals prefer to use lint free pads instead f cotton wool to make sure there's no fibers attached to the nail when it comes to polishing. its entirly up to you what you choose, id get both because cotton wool can come in handy for other things.
- Paper roll - use good qualitykitchen rool or professional couch roll 10' size is the best for manicure treatments.
- Spatulas/pump dispenser - these are used to dispense creams, using either of these methods will prevent crossinfection. Some dispensersare really attracticve and can be matched to your colour scheme.
- Orange wood stick - these are used to tidy up the mess, we all make mess when polishing nobodys perfect so dont feel embarrased if u get a bit on your clients skin, just pop a bit of cotton wool at the end and wipe away. There also good to apply cuticle remover and remove debris 1from under the free edge.
Hii :)
Im Devon & I'm in the process of finishing my nail tech course. ( 2 More tests to go woooooo). So i will be qualified to do Mani's, Pedi's, Nail art & advanced treatments such as using Parrafin wax and heated mittens with my treatments. Hopefully after this i will be going on to do an Acrylic nail course and i cant wait! I LOVE nail Lacquer & i LOVE french mani's, but most of all i LOVE reading other peoples blogs, so i thought id give my own blog a shot!
Hope you enjoy, Chow x
