French manicure is a universal option for designing nail plates. It is suitable for any occasion - both for everyday work and for an image for your own wedding. You don’t have to go to a salon to get beautiful nails; you can do a neat French manicure at home.
The classic French jacket was invented by a designer from the USA. Before the next show, he decided to paint the tips of his models’ nails with white polish. The fashion show audience really liked this version of the manicure and became a real sensation.
It turned out that it goes perfectly with any outfit and accessories.
Today you can find special kits for French manicure at home on sale.
You also need to take a thin brush for decorating your nails, cotton swabs and nail polish remover.
If you plan to do a manicure on short nails yourself, then you should arm yourself with special sticker strips. Because drawing a crescent moon on a miniature edge is not easy. Stickers will make things easier for the girl.
Before a manicure, you need to steam your brushes in a warm bath and carefully remove the cuticle. Using a file or a special home nail treatment device, they are given the desired shape.
French manicure with a pattern allows you to make your image bright and harmonious. The color of the patterns can combine the nails with accents on clothing or makeup.
To create a drawing yourself, you will need to take a thin brush and any number of colored varnishes. You can use glitter of different sizes, rhinestones, manicure sand, etc.
You can use sparkles, rhinestones and other accessories to create a design. It can be placed on the remaining free part of the plate or directly on the white part. Original ideas for French manicure with a pattern can be found on the Internet and simply repeated on your own.
If a girl doesn’t know how to draw, but really wants to add a beautiful design to her nails, she should buy ready-made stickers. Today, you can find such accessories for manicure to suit almost every taste, from the simplest flowers to detailed images of characters from cartoons and comics.
A colored jacket becomes a bright accent in a woman’s look. For it you can choose any shades from black to bright yellow.
First, a trimmed or hardware manicure is performed. The nails need to be given the desired shape and the cuticles removed.
The manicure option looks very interesting when all the nails are painted with varnishes of different bright colors.
You can even do a French manicure with gel polish yourself at home. With proper care, this design will last on your nails for 2-3 weeks.
Before you start decorating your nails, you need to remove the old polish and give your nails the desired shape. The cuticle is removed very carefully, and the nails are degreased with a special product.
All that remains is to remove the sticky layer and apply an oil-based moisturizer to the nails. At this stage of the manicure, it will no longer worsen the quality of the coating.
The fashionable millennium French manicure is an improved version of the traditional manicure under discussion. The natural shade of the plate is preserved and the tip of the nail stands out. This is done with the help of shiny sparkling decor. You can apply the shimmering composition to the entire tip of the nail or decorate the white part in this way.
Initially, the design with gel polish is carried out according to the standard scheme. At the “smile” drawing stage, the gel is mixed with the selected glitter glitter. Next, the material is laid out on the tip and dried in a lamp. The manicure is completed according to the standard scheme.
When using regular varnish, the transparent version is mixed with glitter and sparkling sand. Next, a shiny manicure is performed with stencils that will help create a neat “smile” line. Finally, a clear coat is applied.
Lunar manicure differs from the classic one in that the lunula area is highlighted with a contrasting shade, and the rest of the nail plate is completely covered with another selected color. By the way, the hole at the bottom of the nail can simply be left unpainted.
It is very simple to make a manicure with a design called “lunar” at home. First, the entire nail is painted with a contrasting shade according to the standard scheme. Then a special sticker is glued to the lunula, and the remaining part is covered with a different color.
Or you can immediately cover the lunula with a sticker, and cover the remaining nail with gel or regular varnish in a bright shade. In this case, the lower “smile” will simply remain unpainted.
French manicure was originally created for the catwalk. Its author wanted to save models, who often change outfits during a show, from endlessly repainting their nails. The goal was achieved, and the successful idea was subsequently appreciated by women all over the world, because it fits with different clothes, looks great on nails of any length, and harmonizes with all skin colors. And another advantage that has led to the popularity of French is that you can do it yourself, even with a standard set of tools at hand.
No exclusive or prohibitively expensive means are required, with the exception, perhaps, of stencils - this is the only device that is intended exclusively for creating a neat French jacket. Everything else is probably in your home cosmetics bag, and if not, you can easily find it in a specialized store. There are even separate sets for French manicure, which already include several shades of varnish and stencils.
The price range for them is very different, so you can choose any one to suit your taste and budget.
Reference! In the classic version of the French manicure, the nail is painted with clear varnish and its tip is white. This gives the manicure elegance and naturalness, thanks to which it is considered universal. However, modern fashion has expanded the range of colors, so the base polish can be translucent pink, beige, peach, or lavender. The choice depends on the color of the hands: in winter, cool shades are preferable, and in summer, when the skin tans, warm shades look better.
French manicure can also be done with gel polishes. This will take a little more time, but it will allow you to enjoy all the benefits of gel coating: durability, safety and color that does not lose intensity.
Those who prefer gel polishes will need a special lamp, a primer, a base product, colored coatings for the nail and its tip, a finishing gel and a liquid that removes the sticky layer. The rest of the tools are the same as in the list above.
First you need to remove the old manicure, if any, make your favorite hand bath or simply wash them with soap. Then you should treat the nails: remove excess length and flaking tips, give the intended shape, carefully cut off the burrs, push back the cuticle, sand with a soft buff. Gel polish will require more thorough sanding to remove the top glossy layer. After this, wipe the nail plate with nail polish remover to degrease it and remove sawdust. Then the creative process begins.
Important! The topcoat should be clear or translucent, but may have a pastel tint. In this case, it slightly tints the smile line, dimming the brightness of the white color.
When using gel polishes, the procedure looks similar:
There are many ways to make this job easier for yourself, but each of them will still require skill, patience and special tools. The most reliable and popular way to make French is to use stripes.
Ready-made stencils are included with French manicure kits and are also sold separately. They are thin (about 5 mm) strips of self-adhesive paper. They come in different shapes, but more often they are arched, since it is this that allows you to get everyone’s favorite original version of the famous French jacket.
It is very convenient to use such stencils: they are separated from the base and pressed with the adhesive side to the nail so that the tip remains free. Then you can safely draw a smile without worrying about accuracy.
Important! Many white varnishes are capricious, so it is recommended to apply them in several thin layers. The first one will have bald spots, but you need to let it dry a little and add a second one, which will hide the shortcomings of the previous one.
When the varnish has hardened, the stencil can be removed by simply pulling it by the free edge. If the lower layers of the coating have not dried and have shifted slightly when removing the strip, then carefully adjust the plastic mass with the tip of a toothpick.
This method allows you to quickly get an even smile line and is equally suitable for both regular and gel polishes. Ready-made strips are affordable and sold in almost any cosmetic store, so they are considered the leaders among all auxiliary products for French manicure.
They have, perhaps, only one drawback: you cannot control the degree of curvature, and everyone’s nails are different! In addition, some people want to draw a smile that is more convex than the one obtained using a stencil. There is a way out - make the strips yourself.
The ideal option for making stencils with your own hands is regular self-adhesive paper from an office supply store.
It has a backing so that the strips will not stick to your fingers and scissors, making the cutting process difficult.
Self-adhesive is sold in the form of A4 sheets, which are suitable for a regular office printer, so the easiest way is to find a ready-made layout on the Internet and print it out. The products will turn out like store-bought ones, but you will have to cut them yourself.
For those who know how to work in graphic editors, you can create stencils according to individual parameters, focusing on the width of the nails and the required radius of curvature.
There is a third way to make French stripes from self-adhesive tape with your own hands. To do this, you will first have to make a pattern from thick cardboard, as in the diagram below, and then attach it to a sheet of paper, trace it with a pencil and cut it out. This option is simple, although not very convenient, so to save time it is better to buy ready-made stencils.
adhesive plaster.
French without stripes
How to use tips Tips are artificial tips that are used for... They come in different shapes, colors and sizes, but for a French jacket it is advisable to choose simple, unpainted ones.
Advice! The extension procedure looks simple, but its implementation requires certain skills and knowledge of important nuances, for example, when and what files to use, how to process nails, etc. To better understand the process, it is advisable to go to the salon at least once and look at the work of the master and ask questions.
Not long ago, special tips appeared for quick French nails on short and medium nails. The new product is a design made of a plastic holder and a ready-made white or colored tip.
Express tips can significantly save time. Firstly, there is no need to draw the smile line, since it is already ready. Secondly, you don’t have to cut off the excess length and file the remaining length until the desired shape is achieved. In addition, since false nails are short, when creating a French manicure, you can do without gel and limit yourself to gel polishes, which are easier to work with.
The technology is simple: prepare your hands in the same way as for regular gel polish, select the tips according to size, apply glue to the white strip and press it to the nail. Break the transparent holder so that it is removed entirely, leaving only its contents in place. File the edge of the false smile that protrudes above the nail plate, then degrease everything and treat the keratin area with a primer.
There are quite a few brushes that can be used to paint a French manicure, since girls find it convenient to work with different tools. The following are most often used for French:
Working with brushes is carried out as follows. A drop of white varnish (or gel polish) is applied to an improvised palette, which can be anything: a piece of cardboard, a board, a saucer. From here, a portion of the product is applied to the tool and the tip of the nail is painted. When working with gel polishes, correction can be done with the same brush, simply wiping it on a napkin.
When a manicure is performed with regular varnish, you need to prepare a small bowl with remover in advance. The brush is washed in it so that it does not dry out, and also moistened if the smile line is uneven and needs to be corrected.
To clean brushes use:
Reference! To correct French manicure, you can use not only brushes, but also a special tool. It looks like a felt-tip pen filled with nail polish remover. It is refillable and some even have a set of removable tips.
This cosmetic product is a pencil with a snow-white lead. It is used to paint over the regrown tip of the nail on the reverse side to make it appear whiter. Of course, this effect is short-lived and lasts until the first hand washing, although pencils with a more stable formula have now appeared. However, such a tool still cannot be considered a full-fledged tool for French manicure. You won’t be able to draw a smile line with it, and applying it under a finished French coat with varnish is pointless, since no one will see it anyway.
Some girls do manicures only with a pencil. The nails don't turn out as smooth and white as with polish, but they like the look. Unfortunately, the paint fades during the day and can partially get onto your fingers, making your hands look untidy. The problem can be easily solved if you have wet wipes and a pencil for touching up, but is it worth monitoring the condition of the French coat all day if it is much easier to draw a smile line with a thin layer of milky varnish?
A whitening pencil should be in your makeup bag for only one reason: it will disguise the overgrown tip of the nail and help to urgently “refresh” a manicure that is already several days old.
Reference! The idea of a whitening pencil has been developed. Nowadays you can find special markers on sale that are convenient for painting over a smile from the outside. They are not durable even under a top coat, but they can mask chips on a finished manicure.
This type of nail design is also known as anti-french. It gets its name because the smile is positioned along the cuticle, a mirror image of the traditional version. Thanks to this feature, a manicure can be done even on very short nails without resorting to extensions.
Reverse French is performed both in the classic version (the nail is flesh-colored and the design is white) and with any combination of shades. For this work, it is better to use special stickers, since there is no natural stencil in the form of a growing nail and without experience it will not be possible to draw an ideal line.
Templates for anti-french, having an arched shape, can also be purchased at a cosmetic store or printed on self-adhesive tape. The stencil is fixed on the nail, 2-3 mm away from the cuticle, and the sequence of actions is similar to those given earlier: preparation, application of the base varnish, drawing a smile and fixing with a top coat.
A popular type of anti-french manicure is the so-called moon manicure. The smile line in this case looks like a semicircle hiding the nail hole. To create this pattern, a special donut-shaped stencil is used, but otherwise the technology is the same.
An elegant and laconic French manicure is good in itself, but thanks to lovers of variety, the idea has received comprehensive development. Based on the classic version, fashionistas create new designs, experimenting with color, shape, texture, and decorations. Of course, it was not without criticism, but many girls like the idea. Even Hollywood actresses do not deny themselves the pleasure of decorating their nails with an unusual pattern.
Art French is not distinguished by the versatility of the original and does not suit all outfits, but it allows you to choose a harmonious manicure for each specific look. There are so many variations that it is impossible to list them all, but they can be conditionally divided into several groups.
This idea turned out to be the easiest to implement; you just need to draw a smile line using any other varnish, not white. The central part of the nail can also be coated with a contrasting color. The result will be an unusual manicure, which, depending on the chosen range, can complement both a strict business image and a bright youth look.
You can paint the tip of your nail with several colored varnishes. They are used to draw parallel stripes, waves, zigzags and swirls.
You can decorate the smile line with sparkles: paint over the entire tip of the nail, draw a thin strip along its edge, or create a sparkling gradient. The French jacket turns out to be very bright and festive, making it great for parties.
The tip of the nail can be decorated not only with colored or shiny varnishes. Granules for caviar manicure, velor fibers for velvet, mica, foil, rhinestones, beads, lace and even fragments of dried plants are used. The variety of materials will allow you to fully enjoy the creative process and create a unique design for any event.
The smile can be of any shape: beveled, triangular, wavy, V-shaped, double. Additionally, it is decorated with dots, thin lines, and patterns. It’s not difficult to make such a manicure, but the result of your efforts will not go unnoticed.
To create this variety, traditional colors are usually used, but the nails are additionally decorated so that the manicure matches the dress and hairstyle.
French is simple and complex at the same time. Its flawlessness and naturalness are the result of painstaking work. To master the technique, you will have to try, but the game is worth the candle, because the famous manicure will always help out, including situations when it is difficult to decide on an “outfit” for your nails. Even those who prefer variety in everything will be able to find dozens of original ideas for themselves or come up with an individual one, taking as a basis a classic design that is unlikely to go out of fashion.
French manicure perfectly combines simplicity and style. This nail design is at the peak of popularity, regardless of the age category of women. It is chosen by athletes, businesswomen and ordinary saleswomen. French is not vulgar, so it is ideal for teenage girls. Thanks to its technology, hands look well-groomed and neat. There is no need to change it according to the type of clothing, hair color, makeup or accessories. Its base is universal, suitable for any style, which allows you to save money and time on updating your manicure.
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You can do a French manicure yourself using the recommendations. French is practiced on any nail length. How to do a French manicure at home, because there are many secrets regarding its design and application?
A quality tool is the key to success in any job. And before you begin, you should select the appropriate varnishes. A good set for creating a French jacket will provide an excellent visual picture.
When applied to the nail, high-quality material will fit and look perfect.
Before you start doing a French manicure, prepare the tool.
If you don’t have special strips on hand, you can use tape, but working with it will be problematic when learning.
Any manicure includes high-quality nail treatment. It is recommended to steam your hands in a bath.
To strengthen your nails, you can add a little sea salt. It is not recommended to apply cream to your nails and skin before applying polish.
After the procedure, the overgrown cuticle is moved to the base of the nail and carefully removed with a trimmer. If the growths on the sides are strong, I use special tweezers.
The nail is given the required shape using a nail file. The tool leads from the edges of the nail to the central part. This will prevent the formation of cracks and small chips on the nails.
Nails are covered with base varnish; it has no color. It is necessary to distribute the base in an exact layer on top of the nail and the edges below it.
This will provide protection from the effects of household chemicals and hot water. The base must dry thoroughly before applying the next layer.
The entire surface of the nail is covered with tinted varnish and left until completely dry. If there are no flaws in the form of spots on the nails, then you can take a light transparent flesh shade.
Strips to create a “smile” are glued so that the desired length of the tip of the nail stands out. It should depend on its length.
On short nails, the length of the “smile” should not exceed two millimeters. The strips must be pressed firmly against the nail to prevent the varnish from spreading under them. They are glued very evenly so that the manicure does not seem skewed.
White varnish is applied to each tip in one layer. After drying, it is applied a second time to enhance the contrast. After 10-15 minutes, the strips are removed. By this time, the white varnish should be completely dry.
A drying fixative is applied on top for a protective layer. It will give a pleasant shine to the nail and make the French manicure more resistant to external influences.
Advice
It is recommended to update your French manicure as your nails grow. This will allow you to gain experience and refresh the picture on your nails. After honing your skills, you can master fashionable French techniques, the cost of which in a salon can be impressive.
At any stage of applying varnish, you must wait until each layer dries. If you ignore this, the manicure will not work. You can’t do a manicure if the skin near your nails has lesions and the nail plates are infected with fungus.
If you sweat excessively, your hands should be thoroughly dried. It is not recommended to treat your hands with cream or oil before cutting the cuticle.
The base for the French coat should be fortified so that under the top layers the nail plate does not suffer from a lack of oxygen.
Over time, this type of nail design has acquired many modifications.
The basis of the jacket is tone and “smile”, but you can add a variety of designs to this. This includes the shape or width of the nail plate, the use of different colors, various designs, additional decorations in the form of sparkles or rhinestones.
The true beauty of French manicure lies in its impeccable neatness and clarity of drawn lines. If the smile is drawn crookedly, then the whole impression of even the most complex work will spoil in an instant. Today's French is not only about painting the overgrown tip of the nail in the shape of a crescent. Lunar, zigzag, corner - there are many types of it. All that remains is to choose the most optimal way for yourself to draw it evenly.
Classic and so beloved among most girls, it usually causes the most difficulties. After all, drawing a line on your nails correctly is quite difficult, especially if you have no experience, and your hand trembles a little, and applying varnish to your working hand causes particular concern.
They vary in the curve of the smile: some create a barely round smile, some can make it deeper. However, the first option is most common.
To draw a French manicure, you need to stick a strip just below the overgrown tip of the nail. Next, the varnish is loosely applied in two thin layers. The stencil is removed only after they have dried well, but if you do this earlier, the varnish may come off along with the strip, and then the work will need to start all over again.
But if with the stencil everything was as simple as possible: you just need to glue it evenly to the nail, then with the tape you need to work a little more. The nail is visually divided into two parts and the strip is placed in the middle. The sides should form a crescent, the same on both sides. This option for creating a classic French jacket takes more time, but it is convenient because the depth of the smile is easy to adjust.
This is the traditional and most common way to paint a French manicure on your nails. To do this, you only need a jar of the selected varnish, preferably with a narrow brush. Two semicircular horizontal lines are applied to the nails: from the outer edges to the center. A thinner brush for gel or acrylic paints will help deepen your smile, and you can remove unevenness, again, using a brush, but a wider one with a pointed tip and regular nail polish remover.
You can create a neat French look correctly by making vertical strokes along the contour of your smile. To get a perfect crescent, you need to change the angle of the brush to the nail quite often, and you also need to start a new line strictly at the level of the previous one. You can make corners, as in the previous version, with a thin brush, and remove irregularities with a wide and pointed one.
Lunar manicure is the highlighting of the natural lunula near the cuticle on the nail. It can be painted using the same methods as a classic French manicure. The lunula can be highlighted with color, or left unpainted, covered only with colorless varnish, and for greater originality, decorated with rhinestones or patterns. In the first case, the nail is completely covered with the main color, which will play on the lunula, and when it is completely dry, the creation of a lunar manicure begins. In the second case, this step is omitted.
This method is only suitable when the lunula itself is painted a certain color, because the stencil may not perfectly replicate its shape. It is applied correctly, starting from the middle of the nail, and the varnish is applied only to the outer part.
The lunar curve is individual for each person, which is why, if you want to leave it unpainted, the only way to draw a line exactly along the natural contour is to use a narrow varnish brush. The principle of drawing is already familiar: from the outer edges to the middle, while a more even outer line is drawn with a thin brush.
There is also another type of lunar manicure - an inverted French manicure. In this case, the smile is drawn at the cuticle itself, and it must be colored. To create it, the nail is coated with varnish and, after it is high, the inner smile is drawn using a stencil or by hand, and then the rest of the nail is covered.
The French corner looks very original. It is very simple to perform because it does not require drawing smooth lines. There are two ways to depict it on your nails:
A diamond-shaped French nail with a central corner beautifully lengthens the nail. The most convenient way to depict it correctly is, again, using ordinary tape:
A zigzag French manicure adds freshness to the manicure and gives its owner more originality. You can find strips to create this, but making them yourself won’t be too difficult. For them, instead of the usual one, it is best to choose paper-based tape, as it is easier to work with, and also have curly zigzag scissors. It is quite possible to draw zigzags yourself, but this will significantly lengthen the work process. You can stick curly strips not only straight, but also at an angle - this will only give your nails more zest.
Timeless classics can easily be transformed into a host of original ideas. The play of colors and shapes of “smiles” allows you to always look new. In addition, creating a French pattern is not so difficult: the right tools, patience, constant testing - and the result will definitely live up to your desires.
In the price list of any beauty salon you can find such a service as a French manicure. It's relatively expensive, but what sacrifices won't you make for the beauty of your hands? Of course, it seems that it is almost impossible to accurately draw a French manicure at home along the contour at home. But ProstoNail will dispel this myth, revealing all the secrets of how to create a French jacket yourself, with a minimum of nerves and effort.
Having appeared in the distant 1930s, French manicure still does not lose its relevance. We have already told the story of its appearance in a recent article, however, there are facts indicating that the “discoverer” of the French look was not JeffPink, but Max Factor, the ruler of mascaras and eye shadows. The old man did not have time to patent his invention and the enterprising Jeff began to use it on a commercial basis in 1970. By the way, the first star to dare to wear French hair was Barbara Streisend, the then trendsetter and super-popular vocalist.
At first glance, it seems that creating such a design is not an easy task. And even more so, it is inaccessible to beginners. We are in a hurry to “deceive” your expectations - everything is possible! The main thing is to choose the right tools and materials, on which the success of the entire action depends 50%. ProstoNails has collected everything you need for a DIY French manicure in one table, which you can see below:
Tool or material | Functionality |
---|---|
Nail polish remover or remover | Dissolves the previous coating, leveling the pigment |
Metal pusher | Minimally injures the plate when removed and pushes back the cuticle |
File, abrasiveness from 110 to 180 grit | Removes excess length and corrects the desired shape of nails |
Orange stick and oil | Necessary for unedged manicure to soften the epidermis |
Cuticle trimmers and liquid | Softens overgrown skin, which then needs to be cut off with scissors |
Polishing buff | For grinding plate irregularities for better coating adherence |
Base and top | To prepare and, accordingly, consolidate the result |
Nude nail polish | Used as a base color, imitates the natural soft pink shade of the nail bed. |
White varnish shade | To draw a “smile” line. This can be done either with gel or with regular varnish of medium thickness. |
Stencils | Strips that help to evenly paint free edges. Use your imagination, the perfect line can be made using tape |
The necessary list of attributes for your ideal jacket has been collected! Add to it just a drop of effort and a little bit of diligence - then the result will definitely please you with the perfection of execution.
People say that the master's work is feared. But what to do when you are as close to the master as you are to the moon, and you can’t bear to try on a Frenchie on your hands? We have collected the most effective methods, describing them step by step. Read carefully, memorize and feel free to start experimenting.
French manicure using stripes is perhaps the simplest of all of the above. It will appeal to established lazy people or beginners who have never dealt with complex designs. We covered the subtleties of hygienic manicure in this article, but we will describe the direct process of decorating with stripes below:
French manicure without stripes differs only in the preparatory stage, then the process moves according to the plan outlined above. Still don't know how to make a stencil for a French manicure? Then all attention to our life hacks:
By the way, the process of how to properly do French in stages is described in detail in the training video:
With a stencil, drawing a smile line becomes a mere trifle, which even a beginner can handle. Remember that stencils come not only from ordinary paper, but also from durable metal ones; we will tell you about the intricacies of using the latter in the master class:
French manicure with a brush is a task for experienced users. It makes no sense to describe in detail the instructions for drawing the treasured white lines, but here are a couple of tips that will definitely help make your French jacket neat and elegant:
Shellac manicure is loved by many beauties for its durability and wear resistance. Agree, the average girl does not always have an hour or even two free time to correct her nail design. And walking around with chipped, peeling varnish is not only sloppy, but also not aesthetically pleasing.
Before you start painstaking work, read our tips and then the result will definitely please you and delight your colleagues and girlfriends:
Step-by-step visual instructions will help you easily turn all your ideas into reality:
A manicure produced with conventional varnish has both a number of disadvantages due to its fragility, and a number of advantages. For example, such a design can be easily adjusted, using a minimum of materials and effort. On short nails, the process is more complicated, since the limited capabilities of the plate always force the newly-minted master to be precise. But with our advice everything will go like clockwork:
We think that we have already proven that it is more than possible to draw the perfect smile line without stickers and without a stencil. Well, if you arm yourself with a good mood and our life hacks, the result will defeat even the skeptics. It's time to check it out, isn't it?
We hope our tips and life hacks will help you achieve the perfect result with a minimum of effort. A straight smile line and always a flawless manicure!