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Half Moon Mani Tutorial

The Half Moon Mani was popular in the 1940s and highlighted the natural half moon shape at the base of the nail.  Traditionally, the moon portion of the nail was left bare, while the rest of the nail was painted.

Burlesque performer, Dita Von Teese, frequently sports a two-tone version of this look, having the moon painted a pearly white:

For the holidays, I wanted to try my own version.  Yea, there is a trick making a perfect half moon and maybe I cheated but I don’t really care.  This is my method.

What You Will Need:

A polish for the base, I used Elsbeth’s Rose by Orly

A polish for the top layer, I used Too Good For Him by Sephora by OPI

A ridge-filling base coat, I used Seche Base

A high-shine top coat, I used Revlon Extra Life No Chip Top Coat

An orange stick for clean up

Reinforcement Label stickers (trust me on this)

A note about picking polishes: You will want polishes that apply smooth, thin and dry quickly.  Otherwise, this process will be agonizing.

Step 1: Clean, shape and buff your nails however you normally would.  For this look, I would recommend a slightly rounded nail, but do whatever you prefer.  Then apply a thin coat of ridge-filling base coat.  Because of the serious dying times involved for this look, you can skip the base coat if your nails are flawless.

Step 2: Paint one coat (if the polish only needs one coat for full coverage) or two coats (if the polish is more sheer) of your chosen base color.  Allow this to dry completely.  COMPLETELY. Watch a movie or whatever, but kill an hour.  Even wait overnight if you can handle waiting.  The polish should not only be dry to the touch, but if you press lightly on the polish, it should not smudge or leave any mark at all.

Step 3: At the base of your nail, carefully place reinforcement label sticker where the moon of your nail would be, like so..

If you let your nails dry like I told you to, you should be able to peel the stick up with no issues.

Step 4: Using the reinforcement label as a guide, paint the upper part of the nail. Try to avoid getting too much paint on the sticker itself.  I used two coats of glitter.

One coat of glitter:

Two coats of glitter:

Step 4:  Wait for those bitches to dry.  Seriously.  You will hate yourself if you don’t wait. Wait at least 30 minutes.  The polish again should be try to the touch and dry enough to not be smudged.

Step 5: Gently peel off the sticker.

Step 6: Apply one or two coats of high shine top coat to seal and protect your mani.

It is fairly simple, but takes patience.  Here’s another color combination I did a few weeks ago.  But, alas, I did not allow the top layer to dry completely…

Enjoy your mani!