Nail Art Products for Professionals and Home Artists

Nail art is where the money is on a salon menu and where the interest is at home. A plain gel manicure takes forty minutes and sells at a fixed rate; the same set with a chrome accent or a cat eye finish takes ten minutes longer and sells for a good deal more. This category is everything you need for the decorative half of the service.

Effect gels

Cat eye gels carry magnetic particles that draw into a line under a magnet — the most requested effect of the last two years, and one of the fastest to apply. Mirror cat eye and chrome top coats give the reflective finish that photographs well, and blooming gel spreads colour into itself for marbled and watercolour work without any brush skill at all.

Glitters and pigments

Glitter polish and platinum glitter are the quickest way to lift a single accent nail. Glitter builder gel does the same inside an extension, so the sparkle sits within the nail rather than on top of it where it can wear off.

Brushes

Detail work is a brush problem before it is a skill problem. A 12-piece art brush set covers liners, dotters and fans; the ombre brush is the one that makes a gradient look deliberate rather than muddy. Browse all of them in nail essentials.

Every gel here is TPO free and HEMA free, cures under UV or LED, and soaks off without scraping. New to effect work? Read why gel polish lifts first — art sits on top of a base, and a base that fails takes the art with it.