Beauty Routine Calendar: Plan Your Care Schedule
Choose how often you exfoliate, use retinol, wash your hair, mask, do your nails and remove body hair to get a four-week calendar that spaces the…
Nail Art Planner: Plan Designs, Colors, and Supplies
Choose a nail art design, your experience, nail length and polish type to get a supplies list, the steps for the design, a difficulty check and a time estimate for each stage.
The nail art planner prepares you for a design before the first bottle is opened. It lists what you need, gives the steps, tells you whether the design is within your experience, and adds up how long the whole manicure will take.
What this tool does
It holds eight designs: dots, stripes, French tips, simple flowers, ombre, stickers or decals, a minimalist line or dot, and a glitter accent or fade. For the one you choose, it builds a supplies list, the steps and a table of minutes for each stage, for regular polish or gel.
What you enter
| Field | Choices |
|---|---|
| Design | One of the eight designs |
| Your experience | Beginner, some practice or confident |
| Nail length | Short, medium or long |
| Nails to decorate | Accent nails only, one on each hand, or all ten |
| Kind of polish | Regular polish, or gel cured under a lamp |
How the plan is worked out
Difficulty. Dots, stickers, the minimalist design and glitter are rated 1. Stripes and French tips are rated 2. Flowers and ombre are rated 3. The planner compares this with your experience, counted as 1, 2 or 3. A design two steps above you is "a big step up", one step above is "a small step up", and anything else is "within your experience".
Time for the art. Minutes per nail × number of nails × a speed factor, rounded up.
| Design | Minutes per nail |
|---|---|
| Stickers, minimalist line or dot | 0.75 |
| Dots, glitter | 1 |
| Stripes, French tips | 1.5 |
| Ombre | 2 |
| Simple flowers | 2.5 |
The speed factor is 1.5 for a beginner, 1 with some practice and 0.75 when confident.
Time for the rest. With regular polish: 10 minutes to shape and clean, 6 for base coat and a wait, 18 for two coats of color with waits, 8 to wait before top coat and 3 for top coat. That is 45 minutes plus the art. With gel: 12 to prepare, 5 for base coat, 12 for two coats of color, 2 to cure the art and 6 for top coat. That is 37 minutes plus the art.
Flowers and ombre need room, so the planner warns you if your nails are short.
Messages you may see
All five lists need a choice. An empty one shows a message such as "Choose a design." or "Choose the kind of polish."
How to use it
- Choose the design and your experience honestly.
- Choose your nail length, the number of nails and the kind of polish.
- Select "Plan my nail art".
- Collect everything on the supplies list before you start, and follow the linked guide for the design.
Worked example
Stripes, beginner, medium nails, accent nails only, regular polish.
The art takes 2 nails × 1.5 minutes × 1.5, which is 4.5 and is rounded up to 5 minutes. The total is 50 minutes, plus drying time. The design is "a small step up from your experience", so the planner suggests trying it on accent nails first and starting with the hand you do not write with.
Limits and assumptions
The minutes are typical figures, and a first attempt usually takes longer. Regular polish feels dry after about 15 minutes but stays soft underneath for an hour or more. With gel, follow the curing times on your own products, use the lamp they were made for, and keep gel off the skin, because uncured gel on skin is a known cause of allergy. For color choices, try the Nail Color Matcher.
Related on ArniSun
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest nail art for a beginner?
Dots, stickers, a single minimalist line and a glitter accent. They need few tools and forgive an unsteady hand. See [[BLOG-141]].
How long should I wait before top coat?
With regular polish, about eight to ten minutes after the art, and longer for thick dots. Top coat applied too soon drags the design.
Do I need special tools?
Not at first. A hairpin or toothpick makes dots, and tape makes straight lines. [[BLOG-159]] explains which tools are worth buying later.