The development of the nail industry, as well as a large number of video tutorials, allows anyone to do their own manicure at home. For a modern woman, well-groomed nails are as important a detail of appearance as neat makeup or hair styling.
In recent years, nail fashion has moved further and further away from long, extended nails, handing over the palm to short-cut nails. The manicure accessories market offers owners of short nails a wide range of design solutions for every taste and occasion.
Choosing a shape for short nails
For short nails, it's 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 shape of the upper edge of the nail will visually shorten not only the nail itself, but also the hand as a whole. The ideal shape for short nails is an oval; it visually lengthens the nail plate. Nail specialists also often recommend the almond-shaped filing of the free edge to owners of short nails.
Short nail design with fashionable print
Contains the top of the most fashionable options for decorating short nails - manicure with polka dots, stripes, dots, with abstraction, with animal and floral prints. The variety of this nail art is simply huge. This makes it possible to choose exactly the color, size and type of pattern that you like best.
The most popular types of manicure decor with prints are decorative sparkles, rhinestones, and a fashionable pattern can be created using splashes and paint designs - watercolor technique. As well as stamping and slider. By choosing a manicure with a pattern, you will definitely be in trend!
How to properly care for your cuticle?
The most important condition for the beauty and health of hands and nails is proper cuticle care. Experts strongly recommend removing the cuticle body, because often this area not only becomes rough and unsightly, but can burst, causing significant pain. In addition, cutting the cuticle lengthens the nail plate, so it is recommended for those with short nails.
To make it easier to work with cuticles, nail experts recommend hand baths. At home, you can remove the cuticle using nail clippers.
You can also move and lift the edge of the cuticle with an orange stick and trim 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 become very popular. This manicure is very easy to do at home.
Using cutters, you can painlessly and non-traumatically make the cuticle perfectly smooth. On sale there are not only professional devices for salons, but also small kits for home care.
Do not forget that the cuticle area requires regular care and nutrition with oils. Special oil-vitamin cocktails are widely available, sold in an ergonomic tube-handle with a brush.
Tools for manicure at home
Of course, for a manicure at home, you can purchase all the same tools as in nail salons. But for many, the basic set will be enough:
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 is rounded.
Not only nails can do without a file. It is advisable to purchase a set of files for different types of filing and sanding.
Cosmetic cutters and orange sticks. Orange sticks allow you to push back the cuticle; they can be replaced with a reusable metal spatula. Nippers will help get rid of hangnails and cuticle skin.
This basic set can be supplemented with many other elements, but the most important condition remains the sterility of the devices.
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Sterilizing instruments at home
It is necessary to clean manicure tools, even if they are used within the home or only used by one person. After all, there are often macro- and microdamages on the hands.
In addition to soap solution and warm water, it is recommended to treat instruments with alcohol-containing liquids. On sale you can find special solutions for disinfecting the surface of instruments.
For heat treatment, metal tools should be kept in boiling water for about 20 minutes. You can also simply douse the tools with water heated to 100 °C.
Useful baths as a preparatory stage
After processing the working tools, you can begin preparing your hands and nails.
Manicure at home is a process in which all stages of preparation are important. One of the main ones is soaking your hands in a bath. This procedure allows you to care for the skin of your hands, soften the cuticle to facilitate further processing, and soften an excessively hard nail plate. In addition, baths relax your hands very well, turning the manicure process into a pleasant spa treatment.
The process includes several main steps:
- Choose a small dish and pour hot water at 38-40°C into it. If the water is too hot, you should not burn your skin, you will just have to keep your hands in the water longer. It is possible to purchase special hand baths of a physiologically comfortable shape.
- You can add decoctions of herbs or oils to the water. Herbal baths can disinfect and heal damage to the hands, and oil baths perfectly soften rough areas of the skin.
- It is recommended to keep your hands in the bath until the water cools down. Estimated procedure time is 15 to 25 minutes
- After the time has passed, you should wet your hands with a napkin or terry towel and apply moisturizing cream to the skin of your hands. If you plan to cover the nail plate after the baths, then the nail needs to be treated with a remover.
Glycerin baths are especially popular among craftsmen and their clients, especially since they are easy to make at home. To do this, add 1 tablespoon of glycerin, one teaspoon of ammonia to 2 liters of warm water, and you can also add a decoction of herbs if desired.
It is important to remember that baths are not taken before a hardware manicure.
What kind of manicure can you do at home?
The simplest is a trim manicure. To perform it you will need a minimum of tools and a minimum of skills. The first stage involves soaking your hands in a bath.
At the second stage, experts recommend pushing back and trimming the cuticle, having first cleared all the pterygium from underneath it.
The third stage involves filing the free edge of the nail.
Finally, you can cover the nail with colored or clear varnish, or simply lubricate it with nourishing cream.
Classic manicure: step-by-step guide
For women who want to know how to do a manicure at home, here are further step-by-step instructions:
- Treat your hands with an antiseptic and, if desired, soften your hands in water.
- Use a nail file to work around the free edge area
- Excise the cuticle area and peel the thin skin of the pterygium.
- Cover the nail with varnish or gel polish; if desired, you can create a unique design. When working with nail plate, you should degrease it, especially if you previously took a bath with oils.
Photos of fashionable short nail designs
Many people cannot decide on the choice of manicure, save the super-current ideas for 2019-2020.
- We recommend on the topic: Manicure with prints - top 7 fashionable designs for 2021, photos, trends.
- Fashionable colors of varnish, gel polish for manicure 2021: ideal for the whole year.
- Nude manicure on short nails: the best new techniques and photos.
Choosing a color for short nails
Short nails are a fashion trend today, but with such long nails, you should be careful when choosing your nail color. An incorrectly selected color scheme can highlight all the imperfections, making your nails sloppy and your hands unattractive.
Of course, you should give preference to flesh-colored colors that best match the skin color of your hands. There are many nude colors with pink, beige or even soft lilac shades. A gray shade of varnish looks discreet and elegant on short nails.
All these colors give your hands a well-groomed look and will be appropriate both at home and at work. But what can you do if you want a holiday and bright colors? Should those with short nails completely give up bright and interesting shades?
For a long time, it was believed that short nails should not be emphasized with bright colored polish. But now nail fashion has radically changed this belief; one of the basic colors for short nails has become scarlet red, the color of dark cherry.
A bright accent in a woman’s overall look will be deep blue nails or even metallic silver. The main thing is that the colors are monotonous and have uniform coverage.
Masters do not recommend applying neon colors to short nails; they significantly shorten the nail plate and look unnatural.
Beautiful manicure for short nails with decorative foil
In the coming and future seasons, fashionistas are invited to choose a nail design using decorative thinnest tear-off or “liquid” foil. Due to their thinness, the pieces of foil easily fit on the nail and are covered with a finishing coat. This manicure looks fresh and stylish.
Features of applying conventional varnish
No matter how correctly the nail is processed, and no matter how correctly the color scheme is chosen, the main condition for a good manicure will be the correct application of varnish on the nail.
Here are the main recommendations from nail industry gurus:
- Base coat is a must! The base allows you to level the surface of the nail plate and create a perfectly even coating; moreover, with the base, any coating will last longer. Often, after removing budget colored polishes, the nail plate acquires an unhealthy yellow color; the presence of a base coat can eliminate this problem.
- It is important to paint the nail carefully, without bald spots or painted cuticles. The algorithm for proper painting is simple: the first trajectory of the brush with varnish starts from the base of the nail, the next two are carried out along the nail ridges.
- Only after thorough drying of the first layer is it possible to apply the second. To get the color “like in a tube”, you will have to paint the nail in 2-3 layers. When working with short nails, do not put too much polish on the brush.
- A top coat is recommended. It allows the polish to stay on your nails longer, but you should apply it in a thin layer, otherwise the nail plate will appear too thick.
- At all stages of painting, you should seal the end side of the nail, since the varnish coating begins to chip and peel off from the free edge of the nail.
Combine colors
It is not necessary to wear a single-color manicure (although this is also possible); you can combine two beautiful shades in one design. This will make the nail outfit more original and “branded”. For example, choose a gradient or ombre design. Also, use vertical color stretching. Get a beautiful and very fashionable manicure for short nails. Alternatively, you can have a different color manicure on your hands, which is fashionable.
Applying Shellac: A Step-by-Step Guide
Every year the fashion for shellac is gaining more and more momentum. Working with this coating is not difficult. How to do such a manicure at home is described in detail in the following guide:
Here's how to do this manicure:
- After all the preliminary work has been carried out (filing the free edge and trimming the cuticle), degrease the nail. This can be done using a primer or liquid with acetone. For better adhesion, it is also recommended to go over the nail plate with a low imagery buff.
- Cover the nail with base. Many bases are quite liquid, so it is important to be careful to avoid running under the cuticle and side rollers.
- Place the painted nails in a UV or ice lamp for about 1 minute. Remove the sticky layer with remover or nail polish remover with acetone.
- Apply a colored coating and bake in the lamp again. The polymerization time may vary, depending on the manufacturer of the gel polish and the color. The lamp's rays penetrate darker shades of varnish less well and take longer to bake. If the coating is still liquid, then you should return your nails to the lamp for a longer time. Colored gel polish can be applied in several layers, but each of them must be thoroughly dried. At this stage, any design can be applied.
- The final stage is applying the top coat. We also expose it to ultraviolet light for 1 minute. If necessary, remove the sticky layer with remover.
And a few more tips from experts:
- It is better to use a rubber base and top. The rubber in the composition allows the coating to be more flexible and thereby extends the wear time of the gel polish.
- Each layer of the product (base, gel polish, top) must be dried as well as possible, otherwise the gel coating will quickly come off.
- Correction of product streaks under the side rollers or cuticle after baking in the lamp cannot be removed, so you should use special protection around the nail (“pink thing”, etc.)
Features of choosing a design for short nails
Working out a design on short nails requires more concentration and experience, but taking into account some nuances, you can create the perfect manicure at home.
The basic rule when designing short nail plates is: “Do not overload the nail.” If the drawing is applied with a brush, then all the details of the image should be drawn with clear but thin lines.
Varnishes of contrasting colors are good for this. All design elements should be small in size, starting with rhinestones and ending with transfers or ready-made drawings. If the design is stamped and it is impossible to reduce it, then nail designers use individual elements of the composition.
Short nail design with emphasis on cuticles
Manicure with holes, called “lunar”, is also not slowing down. For several seasons in a row, it has occupied one of the leading positions in the top of the most fashionable nail designs for short nails. It received its unusual name due to the special emphasis on the area at the base of the nail - the lunula. As a rule, the crescent on the nail plate is highlighted either with a second color of varnish, sparkles, or left natural.
For short nails, a manicure with an emphasis on the cuticle in combination with weightless and elegant elements is perfect.
Instructions for applying the design
Each design technique in nail art has its own subtleties and features. But there are basic rules:
- Professional artists use only well-pigmented paints. Paints with weak pigmentation will only spoil the overall look of the manicure.
- Only good glue is used to attach design elements. It not only firmly secures the decoration, but also becomes transparent and invisible when dry.
Classic French
The classic French manicure is the most popular type of design both in beauty salons and when creating manicures at home. You can draw the smile line yourself, or you can use stencils.
The latest fashion trend has become a French look using colored varnishes. For example, the combination of a blue base and a silver free edge is a current and fashionable solution.
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Lunar manicure
Lunar manicure is designed to whiten the area of the nail hole by painting it with varnish. Often, outlining the hole is combined with painting the free edge of the nail, although this is not necessary.
Lunar manicure, like a French manicure, can be presented in both classic and bright color palettes.
Sliders
Sliders have become a new word in simplifying nail design. These ready-made designs can be placed either fragmentarily on individual nails or completely on all nail plates.
There are two types of sliders:
- Thin sliders are placed in water and the design itself moves away from the base; all that remains is to carefully place it on the surface. But be careful, such sliders break very easily.
- Thickened sliders have an adhesive base and are suitable for leveling the surface of the nail. But they are extremely difficult to damage.
Stencils
There are 2 types of stencils on the market: classic, for French manicure, and designer, with a patterned cut of snowflakes, funnels, and other things.
Let's take a closer look at how to do a manicure at home using stencils:
- First, you need to cover your nail with a base color. The color can be any, the main thing is that it differs from the second layer of coating.
- Secondly, we will place the stencil on the desired area. If this is a designer stencil, then we simply cover everything with a contrasting varnish. If the stencil is of the classic 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 design 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.
Experts recommend that women with short nails choose plates with small designs or abstract patterns, because many engravings are quite large and may simply not fit on a small nail.
It is often difficult to transfer a small design onto 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. If you don’t have a special varnish, you can leave the tube you like open for 20 minutes and the varnish will acquire the desired consistency. The greatest visual effect will be achieved due to the contrast of the colors of the base and pattern.
Sequins
Glitter in nail design creates brightness and festivity. They can cover all the nail plates and get a stunning festive effect or highlight individual areas in the composition on the nail. A popular trend today is glitter stretching. To design short nails, glitter is used carefully and in small quantities.
Rhinestones
Designs with rhinestones always look 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 rhinestone diameter. Nail experts 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 different colors, which will give the transition line a special appeal.
- Many nail artists offer designs where rhinestones are attached one to each nail.
- Experts do not advise: Combining a bright, flashy design with a lot of rhinestones, it can look vulgar and inappropriate. Therefore, you need to choose one thing.
Matte manicure
Another interesting design technique is matte manicure. It is created by coating with a special topcoat. The contrast between glossy and matte finishes looks especially impressive. Masters suggest matting not the entire nail plate, but only individual parts. You can paint a few nails with a matte top, while leaving 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 one. In this case, the gradient line visually lengthens the nail.
Also, an excellent solution for short nails would be to apply a gradient coating not to all nails, but only to one or two, while the rest can be coated with a monotonous color.
The Baby Boomer gradient has become especially popular. This technique is performed in nude tones. It is perfect for those with short nail plates, making them look well-groomed and healthy without visually shortening their length. So, by doing a manicure at home, you can significantly save money and time.
In addition, by creating unique designs on their own, any woman is able to reveal the talented nail artist within herself.
Why are nails with a minimum free edge length in trend?
- At the suggestion of progressive stylists, designers, and fashion publications, short nails have become an attribute of elegance, femininity and impeccability.
- Another good thing is that short nails are convenient at home, at work and in care.
- In addition, there is good compatibility with other Look elements. You can immediately figure out what outfit, shoes, bags you can combine your manicure with.
- An important point: short nail length goes well with different textures, colors, coatings and manicure techniques. At the same time, a beautiful design can be created right at home, even without additional lengthening.
All these factors have determined the demand for short nail lengths among women and girls. Now just look at the most fashionable nail designs for short nails 2019-2020 to understand what is trending and choose your own manicure option.