The words, explained.

The care part rather than the colour part: nails shaped and filed, cuticles tidied, hands looked after. Colour may or may not be included, which is exactly where the confusion usually starts.

If what you want is tidy natural nails with no colour at all, this is the word to use. Say so in the chat and nothing else gets added on.

What each service involves

Colour painted onto your own nails in thin coats, each one cured hard under a lamp rather than left to dry in the air. That curing is why it goes straight to touchable and keeps its gloss.

It adds colour and shine. It does not add length. If you came in hoping for longer nails, gel polish on its own is not the thing that does it.

Plain colour designs How long a gel set lasts

A thicker gel worn over your own nail rather than a tip stuck on the end of it. It gives the nail a slightly built-up shape and a little structure, and it can carry a small amount of length past the fingertip.

People usually ask about it when their own nails bend or wear down at the free edge. It is worn over the natural nail, so it grows out with the nail and is maintained rather than kept forever.

How gel and extensions work here

Where length actually comes from. A pre-shaped tip is bonded to your nail and cured, and the shape and length you asked for are built there rather than grown.

This is what most people mean when they type "gel extension nails", even when they say "gel nails". Length, shape and what your hands do all day matter far more here than the colour on top.

How gel and extensions work here Whether extensions damage nails

An older and still widely used way of building length, made from a liquid and a powder that set together in the air rather than under a lamp. It is firmer and is filed into shape once it has set.

Gel and acrylic both build length and they behave differently once they are on. Which one suits you is a conversation about your own nails and your week, not a ranking.

Gel compared with acrylic

What happens when a set is maintained rather than replaced. Your own nail has grown, so there is now a gap at the base, and a refill deals with that gap and rebalances the shape.

The colour and the design usually get attention at the same time. Whether a refill or a fresh set makes more sense depends on how the existing set has held up, which is something to agree in chat.

Refill or fresh set

Taking a set off properly: the shiny top layer is filed away so the remover can get in, and the gel is softened until it lifts rather than being pulled.

It is the step people skip, and skipping it is where most of the damage that gets blamed on gel actually comes from. Peeling a set off takes nail with it.

How removal works

Anything drawn, sculpted or placed on the nail rather than simply painted flat: fine lines, flowers, marble, geometric shapes, small raised detail.

Art is charged and timed by how much of it there is, so the same idea can usually be scaled up or down. A design drawn on every nail can just as easily sit on two.

See what nail art looks like here What to send for custom art

The default: a clear top coat that leaves the surface reflective. It is what most people picture when they picture a finished nail, and it shows the colour underneath most truly.

Browse the design catalogue

The same colour with the shine taken off, so the surface reads soft and velvety instead of reflective. It makes dark shades look deeper and flattens out glitter.

Matte surfaces show marks from oil and hand cream more readily than gloss does, which is worth knowing before you choose it for a week of cooking.

Between glossy and matte. Not reflective, not completely flat, closer to the sheen on a silk dupatta than on a mirror.

A bare or sheer nail with a line of colour along the free edge. Classically a white tip on a pink base, though the tip can be any colour and any thickness.

A micro French is the same idea drawn very fine. Because the base stays bare, a French tends to be gentle as the nail grows, since there is no hard line at the cuticle to notice.

Every French design

One colour blending smoothly into another with no visible join, usually running from the cuticle to the tip. The soft nude-into-white version is the one people bring in most often.

A fine metallic powder buffed over a cured colour until the surface reads like polished metal rather than paint. The colour underneath decides whether it comes out silver, rose gold or something deeper.

Finishes that catch the light

A gel carrying fine magnetic particles. A magnet held near the wet surface pulls those particles into a band of light, which is then cured in place.

The band moves as your hand moves, so it looks quite different in daylight and under event lighting. Nothing is drawn on; the effect is inside the colour.

Finishes that catch the light

A translucent colour with real depth, closer to stained glass than to paint. You can still see the nail through it, and it builds up richer with each coat rather than becoming solid.

A soft circle of a second colour airbrushed or blended into the middle of the nail, so the nail looks lit from within rather than painted across.

Design that leaves part of the nail deliberately bare. The unpainted area is part of the picture rather than somewhere the colour ran out.

Something placed on the nail and then sealed under a clear layer so the surface stays completely smooth: gold foil, a fleck of glitter, a fine dried flower.

Art that stands up off the nail rather than lying flat, such as a sculpted petal, a bow or a raised pearl. It catches light and it also catches on fabric and hair, so where it is placed matters.

See what nail art looks like here

Fine line work drawn from mehndi and traditional motifs: paisley, filigree, lace, small repeated florals. Usually worn on a bare or milky base so the drawing is what you see.

Florals and mehndi designs Mehndi and your nails

Filed to follow the natural curve of your fingertip. The shape that catches least on hair, dupattas and fabric, and the easiest to live with at short lengths.

Rounded but longer through the middle, so the finger reads a little longer without much extra length.

A square tip with the corners softened. It holds a French tip crisply like a square while losing the sharp corners that snag, which is why it is the most-chosen shape in this catalogue.

A flat tip with defined corners. It gives art the most room and the cleanest line for a French, and those corners are also the part most likely to catch on something.

Tapered along the sides to a soft rounded point. It needs some length to read properly, and it gives fine art and florals a natural canvas.

Tapered like an almond but cut flat across the tip. A shape that wants length, and one most people meet on extensions rather than on their own nails.

Tapered to a sharp point. The most dramatic shape and the least forgiving of everyday use.

The part of the nail past your fingertip, where the nail is no longer attached to skin. When anyone asks how long your nails are now, this is the part being measured.

How much free edge you already have decides whether the length you want needs extensions or only shaping.

Relative words, not measurements, and they mean different things to different people. Short usually means at or just past the fingertip, and long is where the nail starts making decisions for you about typing, buttons and contact lenses.

The most reliable way to land the length you want is to go one step longer than what you already wear rather than four, and to say what your hands do all day.

Short designs that wear well

Setting a gel hard under a lamp rather than waiting for it to dry in air. Each coat is cured before the next goes on, which is why there is no long wait at the end.

Where the gel has come away from the nail, usually starting as a small edge you can catch a fingernail under. It is the beginning of most set failures.

The single worst thing to do with a lifted edge is pick at it. That is how one nail becomes three.

What to do when a nail lifts or breaks

The skin where your nail meets your finger. It is tidied before a set so the colour can sit flat against it and the edge looks clean.

Cuticle oil is the aftercare that gets mentioned most and used least, and it is doing more for how a set wears than most people expect.

The slightly raised high point built into the middle of an extension or a builder gel nail. It is the reason a built nail holds its shape rather than sitting flat.

The bare strip that appears at the base as your own nail grows and pushes the set forward. Nothing has gone wrong when you see it; it is the clock on a set.

Dark and solid colours show it sooner than sheer, milky or French designs, which is worth weighing if you would rather not think about your nails for a while.

The clear layer sealed over everything at the end. It decides the finish, so the same colour can come out glossy, matte or satin depending on which one goes on last.

Everything that happens before any colour: shaping, tidying, and taking the shine off the surface so what goes on next has something to hold to. Unglamorous, and the part that decides how the set wears.