Creating New Shapes For Nails

The colour of your nail polish and the way you apply it can help give your nails a different appearance or shape. Filing, too, can be used to balance the overall look.

Pale, flesh-coloured polish or shimmer shades of baby pink or beige, really do make the fingers look slimmer and the nails longer. Deep, dark colours have the opposite effect—they certainly do not flatter square fingers and short nails.

When it comes to polish application, there are certain tricks worth employing if you want your nails to look their best. Wide or square nails, for example, can be slimmed down to look longer simply by leaving the corners of the nail base free from polish. If you find this difficult, use an orange stick dipped in polish remover and tidy the corners into a soft curve.

VARIOUS FILING STYLES help enhance the nail shape. Fan-shaped nails are best kept short and rounded. Square nails can look wonderful if worn long and gently rounded at the tips, creating a soft-edged rectangular shape. 

Rounded nails should always be filed to an oval shape, and worn a bit on the longer side. The tips of oval nails should be filed to balance the shape at the nail base, and narrow nails should be gently rounded. Always file nails from one corner to the centre. Don't saw back and forth or file nails down into the corners.

Oval nails are probably the prettiest of all shapes, and look perfect filed to an oval that balances the shape of the base. After applying basecoat, paint the whole nail from base to tip in three strokes.