Waterless Manicure: Easy Tips on How to Shape Your Nails

Tools and materials:

• Nail file
• Cuticle remover

1. File your nails

My preference is to use a 100/180 grit nail file. The 180-grit side is for filing, and the 100-grit side is for buffing the old gels on my nails so they are ready for soaking. 

Tip: I use the mini-sized nail files so I can use a new one for each manicure. 

File your nails to the shape you want. 

Another tip: Square nail tips can snag on things easily, while rounded corners are less likely to snag and break. 

Try to limit how much filing you do on the side nail wall, because too much filing there will weaken your nail overall. The side nail walls act sort of like the spine of your nail.

When you are done filing, check the nails for evenness and touch up the filing as necessary.

Try to check your nails from several different angles to ensure you have consistency in your nail filing.

2. Apply cuticle remover

Apply cuticle remover to the base of each nail and spread it around the cuticle.

Let it do its job before you use your cuticle removing tool to actually remove the cuticles. You can learn more about this in my video Waterless Manicure: Cuticle Removal!

With these nail filing techniques, you will get healthier, even and consistent filing results.

Waterless manicure: How to shape your nails

No matter what angle you look at your nails from, they’ll look perfectly symmetrical. 

If you have any questions about this waterless manicure process, or how to file or shape your nails, please feel free to ask by leaving me a comment.