Nail Spas: Manicures and Hand Spas

If you like taking care of your nails, nothing is better than a professional nail spa to make your hands feel and look divine! Lay back and relax as your nail technician takes care of everything, bringing healing treatments to your cuticles and nails and grooming them to perfection. With a nail spa, you'll relieve and invigorate your hands, from the nail tips all way to the roots, the palms and fingers. Men and women alike can enjoy and deserve to experience this type of pampering for two of the most exposed parts of our body.

Many people like to start their nail spa with a soak and a scrub. For this purpose, your nail technician brings in a basin of water, to be placed on your lap or on a mobile basin stand. Aromatic herbs and essences, moisturisers and exfoliants can all be part of the mix, adding more dimensions to your sensory relief. After the soak, dry your hands on a plush towel, which can be warmed for added comfort. An organic scrub or pumice will then be used to slough off old skin and callouses from the sides of your fingers, your hand joints and wrists. Scrubbing is done in rythmic circular strokes and back and forth for areas that require thorough exfoliation.


After a scrub and perhaps another soak, your hand's skin will be noticeably softer and you'll definitely feel refreshed, as your wrists' pulse points discharge all excess heat. Cuticle trimming follows, in which the excess growth may be pushed back to expose the face of your long nails, or reduced using tiny snips to keep your nails looking cleaned. Cuticle trimming is done carefully to ensure only the dead skin cells are taken away. An antiseptic is a good thing to daub or spritz on the fingernails after reducing the cuticles in order to close gaps in the skin's defences.

Nail shaping follows, which can take a few minutes to an hour. Choosing a nail shape is generally guided by the contour of your fingers and your natural cuticle profile. Small hands and fingers will look pretty with an almon shaped nail. Short and stockier fingers go well with a squoval, which looks like a squarish body with rounded corners. Wide fingers and full-bodied hands do best with squared edges. Other nail profiles can be done if you wish; you might want to try a rounder cut, or spear-tipped nails to complement a wilder look, for instance.

Nail shaping requires proper buffing technique with a nail file; to get a rounder shape, your nail technician will pull the file on both left and right sides, in one direction each time. To square off your nail, the file will be drawn across the top in one direction. Seesawing a nail file like a saw is avoided as this can cause chipping and tears to your nail.

If your nail is not long enough or doesn't have the length you desire, fret not as nail extensions are part of many nail spa packages. A gel nail extension can be bonded to your nails using UV light treatment, and will look and feel just like a natural nail! Many prefer a gel extension overcoating their nail for added protection and easy maintenance. Extensions can be trimmed, filed and painted according to your wishes.

Now it's time to paint your nails! Nail polish comes in many delicious-sounding colours and their formulations vary from acrylic foundations to stick, press and cure appliques. A manicure pencil is perfect for covering tricky areas, like your nail base and under the nail's overhang. Before painting your nails, a solvent will be used to clear out bits of old polish from your nails, or if not that, excess oils that can keep the polish from adhering properly.

A classic treatment for the nails is the French manicure, which looks natural and neat. A French manicure looks best on short to medium-length nails, with the tips painted white with nail polish. The underside of the overhang is coated with white nail polish as well. The base polish coat for the rest of the nail is sheer clear or slightly tinged with pink. Although it can look simple, the challenge in a French manicure is making the two colours smooth when they're side by side, and without becoming too thick on the nails. It's a good challenge to learn how to do French manicures, which you might just leave to the hands of your spa nail technician, but for a quick do-over at home self-polishing nail kits are widely available.

For an intense rejuvenation of your hands and nails, try a melted paraffin wax bath. This is safe to use because the wax can be melted at a tolerable temperature for your hands. The melted wax's heat enables the absorption of essential oils that nourish your skin. It's an instant moisturiser, and will leave you smelling warm and fresh if fruits, spices or mint is added to the wax!

An oil bath is the best thing for dry and brittle nails, which cleanses the skin and improves the pliability of the cuticles. Mineral oil, olive oil or other herbal oils can be used to impart aromatherapeutic benefits to your nail spa. The oil can be made warm just like paraffin wax, and after the soak, the rest of the nail spa can include a complete rubdown of the fingers and arms, a hand massage, and more five-star spa treatment!