Nail Art FAQ: Your Questions Answered

Very little. A base coat, two or three polish colours, a top coat, a thin detail brush or a dotting tool, a nail file or buffer, and cotton pads with rubbing alcohol for cleanup will get you through your first several designs.

Skip glitter-heavy, very sheer or very dark polishes at first. They hide brush strokes and make mistakes hard to spot. A light-coloured, opaque polish is the easiest thing to learn on.

A size 000 (triple-zero) or 5/0 detail brush is the usual starting point because it gives you thin, controllable lines for outlines, flowers and swirls.

Pair it with a double-ended dotting tool, one small tip and one large tip, and you can create most beginner designs, dots, simple flowers and polka-dot patterns, without any other tools.

Regular polish air-dries on its own and is removed with ordinary acetone. Gel polish needs to be cured under a UV or LED lamp between coats, lasts around two to three weeks, and must be properly soaked off rather than peeled. Dip powder is built up by dipping the nail into coloured powder and sealing it with an activator, which gives extra strength but takes longer to remove.

Every design on Moonails lists which system it uses, so you know what to buy before you start.

It depends on the design. Every tutorial on moonails.com states which type of polish it uses and whether a UV or LED lamp is required, because gel needs curing between layers and regular polish does not.

If a design does not specify a lamp, it has been created with regular, air-dry polish.

Tutorials are written in short, numbered steps to keep them easy to follow while your hands are busy. Common shorthand includes BC (base coat), TC (top coat), 2C (two coats), and terms like ombré or gradient, negative space, and accent nail (one nail painted differently from the rest).

Where a step needs curing, the tutorial will say so explicitly, along with how many minutes under the lamp that layer needs.

A cuticle pusher, whether metal, wood or a rubber-tipped tool, gently pushes back the skin at the base of the nail so polish can sit closer to the nail bed for a cleaner, longer-lasting result.

It is not strictly required, but prepping the nail this way before any design noticeably improves how neat and long-lasting the finished manicure looks.

Curing is the process of hardening gel polish using UV or LED light. Without it, gel polish stays soft and tacky indefinitely, no matter how long you wait.

If a tutorial calls for gel polish, a lamp is required. If it uses regular polish, no lamp is needed at all, since regular polish air-dries on its own.

Streaking usually comes from coats that are too thick, or from polish that has thickened with age. Bubbles are almost always caused by shaking the bottle instead of rolling it between your palms, or painting in a warm, humid room.

Early peeling nearly always comes down to prep: oily or damp nails, skipping the base coat, or forgetting to seal the free edge, the very tip of the nail, with each coat.

Steady your brush hand against your other hand or a table edge, thin out polish that drags with a drop of proper nail polish thinner, and clean up small mistakes immediately using a thin brush dipped in acetone before the polish fully sets.

Working one nail at a time, rather than applying every base coat first, also makes it easier to fix slips while they are still wet.

Yes. The technique is identical, just mirrored. Painting your dominant hand is always the trickier side, regardless of whether you are left- or right-handed.

Many nail artists, left- and right-handed alike, find a brush-pen style polish or a bottle with a built-in brush easiest for painting their dominant hand.

A standard 15ml bottle of polish or gel covers roughly twenty to twenty-five full manicures, based on two coats across ten nails. Design-heavy tutorials that use several colours typically need only a small amount of each shade, since detailed nail art uses far less product per nail than a plain base coat.

Every tutorial on Moonails lists the colours used so you can check what you already have before starting.

Negative space designs leave part of the natural, bare nail unpainted as a deliberate part of the pattern, often combined with fine geometric lines or a single painted section.

It is a popular beginner-friendly style because it uses less product overall and naturally hides small imperfections in the untouched areas of the nail.

Yes. Every tutorial on moonails.com is free to read, and no account or subscription is needed. Advertising and affiliate links cover the cost of producing them.

Yes. You are welcome to recreate our designs on your own nails or on clients as part of your nail services, whether at home or in a salon. A credit linking back to moonails.com is appreciated but not required.

What you may not do is copy, republish, translate or sell the tutorial text, photos or step-by-step images themselves. Share the link rather than the tutorial content.

Every tutorial includes a print button that strips out the ads, comments and navigation so you get a clean copy of the steps and product list.

Start with the Beginner Designs collection. These use only basic tools, avoid intricate freehand work and explain each step in full.

Simple dots, French tips, single-colour ombré and one accent nail are all good first projects: they finish quickly, and mistakes cost you very little polish.

Many do. Where a technique is easier to watch than to read, such as a gradient blend, a marbled effect or a clean French tip line, an embedded video walkthrough is included alongside the written steps.

Usually, yes. For linear and geometric designs, the spacing and angle of the lines can be scaled up or down to fit longer or shorter nails, which each tutorial explains where it matters.

For designs built around a specific nail shape, such as almond or square, adjusting the placement of dots or lines slightly to follow your own nail's curve is usually all that is needed.

Please do. Send your idea through the contact page. Anna reads every suggestion, and reader requests are a large part of what gets designed next.

No. There is no registration and no paywall. You can browse, read, print and share any tutorial freely.

New designs are added regularly throughout the year, with seasonal collections around holidays, summer and back-to-school. Join the newsletter if you would like new releases sent to you.

Bookmark it in your browser, save it to a Pinterest board, or use the print button for a paper copy to keep by your nail kit.

Yes, and it is very much appreciated. Please share a link to the tutorial page along with your own manicure photos, rather than copying the steps into a post or group.

Linking keeps the tutorial accurate if it is later updated, and it is what allows us to keep publishing free designs.

Everything goes through the contact page, including design questions, corrections and partnership enquiries.