How to do a Manicure at Home

This page will guide you through the steps of performing your own manicure, from choosing your tools to maintaining your polished nails long after they've dried.Picture yourself absent-mindedly reaching for a glass of water or flipping through the pages of a magazine, when something catches your eye: the sight of ten smooth, shiny, and perfectly manicured nails! Amazingly enough, these well-groomed nails can be yours without an expensive trip to the salon.

Shape Nails

Begin by shaping fingernails to an oval. Because you’re likely to cut too short, don’t use nail scissors or clippers. And don’t use metal nail files: the warming effect they create causes nails to split. Best are emery boards and files of corundum, glass or ceramic.

Filing back and forth results in rough edges.

File in strokes toward the center of the nail. The most elegant nail length is about two or three millimeters above the fingertip.

Remove Cuticles

To soften cuticles and soak away dirt particles, bathe hands in soapy water. Remove stains with lemon juice.

Never cut cuticles: it causes them to thicken and grow more quickly. Instead, apply cuticle remover, allow a few minutes for it to work, then carefully push back with a rubber cuticle hoof.

Remaining cuticle threads are best pulled away with tweezers: never cut them off. Between manicures, gently push back cuticles with a towel after washing hands. This makes weekly cuticle removal unnecessary.

Moisturize

To keep hands smooth and nails supple, apply hand cream and massage well into nails. Chapped and dry hands benefit from an overnight hand mask.

Alternatively, before going to bed, mix a simple, lanolin based skin care cream with boiling water, massage into hands and cover with cotton gloves.

If hands are moisturized and cuticles taken care of daily, all you need to do on a weekly basis is shape nails. What could be easier?