How to Give Yourself a Red Manicure

Red nails are always in style and especially during the winter months, it's a great color that accentuates your lighter skin tones. Many people might be scared from attempting their own at-home manicure, and just figure it is easier to splurge on a trip to the nearest nail salon. However, spending the average $20 to have someone massage your hands for two minutes and then paint your nails within 30 seconds doesn't seem worth it.

While this recession isn't helping anyone's wallet, having the Do-It-Yourself technique down for many different parts of your life, can really help you out. There's no point in giving up the parts of your life that you enjoy, just because you need to watch you're spending.

You'll want to find a great red nail polish, the best brand for nail polish is OPI, it goes on thick and lasts for over a week in most cases. You can find OPI in most drug stores, supermarkets and beauty marts. OPI has many different shades of red, so you can easily match which shade of red will go best with your skin tone. OPI nail polish usually runs for about $7.00, but it lasts for a long time and you can get many manicures out of the nail polish jar.

Here is how you can give yourself the perfect hot red manicure, without having to leave your house:

Step 1: You'll want to make sure you have everything you need for your manicure set up in front you. Grab your red nail polish, clear nail polish, file, nail clippers, cotton swabs, hand sized container of warm water, q-tips, paper towel, linen towel, and nail polish remover.

Step 2: Wash your hands before you begin so you don't have dirt trapped under your nail polish. If you have nail polish already on your nails, you'll want to take your cotton swabs and soak them in the nail polish remover and thoroughly remove all remnants of your nail polish.

Step 3: Soak your hands in the warm water for around 5 minutes. When you take your hands out of the water, you'll want to dry them thoroughly on your linen towel.

Step 4: Clip your nails and trim your cuticles. Then file them be flat on the top, and round around the corners.

Step 5: Wash your hands again, to make sure there is no nail dust left on your nails.

Step 6: Open up your red nail polish, and begin polishing from the cuticle to the top of the fingernail. Going in this direction is helpful when you have extra nail polish on the brush. You can drag it off the nail, rather than your skin. Do this method for each of your 10 fingers.

Step 7: Let your fingers air dry for about 5 minutes. If you have a fan, you could try to stand in front of it for a few minutes while carefully waving your nails in front of it.

Step 8: Repeat step 6 if the nail polish color on your finger isn't as dark as you desired, or if you didn't put it on as thick as you'd like to see it.

Step 9: Repeat step 7.

Step 10: Once your 2^nd coat of nail polish is completely dry, you'll want to apply the clear coat finish over each nail in the same motion (from the cuticle to the top of the nail). You only need one coat of the clear coated nail polish.

Step 11: Again, you'll want to let your nails dry for about 10 minutes this time.

Step 12: You might look down at your nails and see that there is red nail polish on your skin. We all know this isn't the nicest look, but it's easy to fix. Take your q-tip, dip it in the nail polish remover and carefully clean around your nails.

You now have beautifully painted red nails, and it looks as though you just spent an hour at the nail salon and spent around $20.00.