The half-moon manicure has been making a comeback, and with good reason! This gorgeous design is super easy to do and is a really fun way to add some excitement to your nails. I decided to spice mine up and add a glitter topcoat, but you can stick with the classic look and only apply a clear topcoat for added shine and protection.

Materials:
- Light polish
- Dark polish
- Base coat
- Top coat (glitter or clear)
- Scissors
- 5 binder reinforcement stickers

Note: use the lighter color for your base because it will be easier to cover with the darker polish, and generally looks nicer. If you’re going for the classic look, a white base with black overtop looks very chic! I also love a white base with red or grey.

Step 1

Apply a clear base coat to protect your nails from staining. Paint two coats with the lighter polish and let them dry for half an hour, creating the perfect base for your cosmic nails.

Step 2

After letting your nails dry, cut the reinforcement stickers in half and place them (cut side up) just under your cuticle. Make sure they are straight and try to press down, without ruining the base, so there is no room for the other polish to seep through.

Step 3

Apply the darker polish onto the lower half of your nail, and go right up to the sticker, making sure to not get dark nail polish near your cuticle. As this is the trickiest step, do one nail at a time because if you give the polish time to dry, it might be harder to remove the sticker. In my experience, if I let the nail polish sit it becomes goopy and ruins the design. After applying two coats of the polish peel the sticker off carefully.

Step 4

After you have successfully created the half moon design you can clean up any messy edges by dabbing the lighter polish on any of the darker polish imperfections (if the darker polish has seeped into the light). If you’re going for the classic look, it’s now time to seal in your beautiful design with a topcoat. You could also use nail polish remover and clean up any polish that may have gotten onto your skin.

Step 5

If you’re in the mood for some glitter, apply 2-3 coats of a glitter topcoat and viola! Another reason I love using glitter on top of a design like this is that it helps to hide any imperfections. If you don’t want to apply glitter to the full nail, you could leave the base color bare, and only apply the glitter to the darker color, which would look awesome!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial! You could really use any colors you want for this, and I’m sure it will look great. It’s such an easy design. Please let me know if you’ve tried it out, and share photos if you can.

The polishes I used are:
- Seche Vite base coat
- Jesse’s Girl – Spring Break (base color)
- ORLY – Plum Noir (dark color)
- Wet ‘n Wild – Kaleidoscope

If you’re on the hunt for a glitter polish I highly recommend Wet ‘n Wild’s Kaleidoscope. It’s only $1 and the formula is great! It has both tiny and big glitter pieces, and really adds a whole new look to any design.

What did you think of this tutorial? What are your favorite nail art designs? Leave us a comment and share!

Written by Jessica Barclay