Providing Manicure Treatment - A Step-By-Step Guide

By Amber

The following steps are a guide on how to perform a basic manicure treatment with cuticle work. You may wish to add a massage, hot oil, or paraffin wax procedure to this, to make the treatment more specialised.

Manicure preparation

• Prepare your treatment area, place your products close to hand and make sure you have good lighting.
• Make sure your client is comfortable, warm and supported.
• Remove the client’s jewellery and place nearby where they can see all of their personal belongings.
• Wash and sanitise yours and your client’s hands.
• Check client’s hands for any contra indications before starting any treatment.
• Remove any old polish, making sure it is all removed thoroughly around the cuticle area, side walls and under the free edge.
  

Manicure procedure

1. Ask your client what shape and length they would like their nails. Starting with the left hand, file the nails with an emery board. Keep the file at a 45 degree angle and never saw backwards and forwards at the nail.
2. Apply cuticle cream to the cuticle on each finger and massage into cuticles using your thumb in a circular motion.
3. Fill a manicure bowl with warm water and place the left hand into soak, this will soften the cuticles.
4. Leaving the left hand to soak repeat steps 1 & 2 on the right hand.
5. Remove the left hand from the bowl and dry. Place the right hand into the manicure bowl to soak.
6. Apply cuticle remover to the left hand using sparingly. Gently push back the cuticles with either a cuticle pusher or an orangewood stick tipped with cotton wool, using a circular motion.
7. Make sure all the non-living tissue and debris is removed from the nail plate. This will give the cuticles a neat and tidy appearance.
8. Only if needed use cuticle nippers to remove any hang nails.
9. Repeat steps 5 – 8 on the right hand.
10. At this point you may want to perform a hand and arm massage.
11. If the client is having a polish you will first need to squeak the nails using a lint-free pad and nail polish remover. This will remove any oil from the massage so that the polish will adhere properly to the nails.
12. Apply the polish using 1 coat of base coat, 2 coats of the clients chosen colour and 1 coat of top coat to finish.
13. If the client does not want a polish the nails can be buffed to a shine to finish. Do this using a buffer and buffing paste. Place a small bead of paste onto each nail with an orangewood stick and gently buff in one direction from the base of the nail to the free edge.
    

Things to remember

• Always be gentle when pushing back the cuticles. The aim of cuticle work is to loosen and tidy the cuticles on the nail plate, forcing them back too hard can cause damage to the matrix.
• If using cuticle remover, make sure it is properly removed after as leaving it on can cause damage to the cuticles and surrounding skin, so care should be taken when using this.
• Take care when removing cuticles making sure that only excess cuticle on the nail plate is removed and not any living tissue.