About Blush Thicket

Blush Thicket is a small set of free tools for doing your nails at home. It grew from a simple wish: to sketch a nail design before reaching for the polish, and to stop guessing how long to wait between coats.

The tools

• Nail art designer: paint five nails on a hand with French tips, ombré, dots, stripes, glitter, stamps and freehand brushwork, in eight nail shapes, then save or download your design.
• Nail shape guide: eight shapes drawn at three lengths, who each suits, how to file it and how well it holds up, with a quick shape finder.
• Polish dry & gel cure timer: a step-by-step timer for regular polish and for gel lamp cures.
• Manicure checklist: every at-home manicure step, tickable and printable.

How it works

Everything runs in your browser. Your designs, timer and ticks are kept in your browser's local storage on this device and are never uploaded; the PNG and text downloads are made on your device too. There are no accounts, no adverts and no cookies.

Where the information comes from

Safety notes and figures name their sources on each page, mostly the American Academy of Dermatology, the British Association of Dermatologists, the US FDA and NIOSH. Drying and curing times are labelled as typical values, because they vary with the product and the lamp. The shape advice and sample designs are our own. Nothing here is medical advice: for problems with your nails or skin, see a doctor or dermatologist.

Spotted a mistake? The sources are linked on each page, so you can check them for yourself.