{Beginners Guide & Tutorial} Half Moon Manicures

Dita von Teese and her Half Moon Manicure

A very vintage way of manicuring your nails, the half moon manicure where to the nail is painted but the half moon (and or tip) area is left bare, Popular in the 1920s, 30s and 40s the half moon manicure  is also making a resurgence these days among many vintage loving gals.

Now I know your thinking whats the point, your busy right? Can hardly get together a normal lick of polish let alone spend ages doing a tricky half moon manicure!! Well relax, this really is easy......

and will look fantastic!

Half Moon Manicure Tutorial

You will need
Base & Top coat
Nail polish
Hole re-enforcing stickers


How to do it...

1.First cut / file your nails into you preferred shape - I like to keep mine  fairly short but rounded.

2.Remove any old polish

3.Apply a base coat of polish, I use clear polish , but you can certainely mix it up and go for another coloured polish! Let it dry.

4. Apply re-enforcer stickers to the base of the nails to create a mask for the half moon shape - make sure they are central on each nail!

5. paint your nails with main colour varnish, painting slightly over each sticker. Let dry.

I've used 'Rapid Ruby' for this tutorial.

6. Carefully remove stickers, if your careful use can place them on other hands nails!!!

7. If required, apply a top coat all over the nails.

Go out, be beautiful!!!

Where things may have gone wrong.....

Placement of stickers - be brave you need to cover quite a deep bit of your nail to get this looking right. The top of the hole should be in line with the base of your nail, no less.

Varnish coming off with the sticker - two culprits here, you may have put on too much varnish or may not have let the varnish dry thoroughly. If its taking off  the base coat, then stick the re-enforcer to something else first before applying to your nail and the stickiness will hopefully be reduced.

Varnish creeping under sticker - make sure the sticker is firmly stuck down with no gaps. paint nails from base to tip direction



Hope you like it!