You have to check out our Moana inspired nail designs! Whether your little one wants to explore the terrain of your living room or head out to Disneyland, they are sure to love these looks inspired by the Disney movie, “Moana.” Read on for more!

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Refer to this site’s policies for more information.

My girls and I LOVE Moana! If we could transport our entire life to the Polynesian Islands, we would do it in a heartbeat. We’re not picky, any one of the Polynesian islands will do 😉

We decided to come up with a couple of Moana nail designs to sport during our visit to the Disney On Ice: Dare To Dream production in Long Beach last week. Did you know this is the first Disney On Ice show in which Moana makes an appearance? You can read all about it HERE.

I’d say that some awesome manicures are in order!

Supplies Needed

You will need to gather the following supplies for your manicures.

Tribal floral manicure:

Coral color polish
White nail polish
Nail gems
Tooth pick
Small amount of water
Nail art brush
Nail dotting tool (tip: a bobby pin or embossing tool can be used if needed)

Ocean color wayfinder manicure:

Turquoise nail polish
Clear sparkle polish
White polish
Nail gems
Tooth pick
Nail art brush
Nail dotting tool (tip: a bobby pin or embossing tool can be used if needed)

You can find the products we used (or similar) via the direct links we provided below.

Instructions

Follow the steps listed below to achieve each manicure look!

Tribal Floral Manicure:

Step 1: Apply a base coat of clear polish.

Step 2: Apply 2 coats of coral color polish.

Step 3: Allow nails to dry completely. The nails must be dry for you to paint nail art.

Step 4: To make tropical flowers:

- - Take a large dotting tool dipped in white polish and make a circle of 5 dots as shown.
  - Take a dry toothpick and place the point at the inner part of a circle. Pull the paint to the end of the circle (aka: lightly draw a line). Repeat this for the other circles
  - Take a slightly smaller dotting tool and do the same thing as above. Then, the smallest dotting tool to make a third flower if there is room.
  - Place a gem in a dab of clear polish, then affix the gem to the center of a flower. Repeat for the other flowers.

Step 5: Dots

- - Take a large dotting tool dipped in white nail polish. Make a row of dots down the middle of a nail.

Step 6: Zig Zags

I used a nail stencil for this one, but you might want to reconsider. I found that the design did not come out nice and crisp. You might be better of painting this by hand with a nail art brush.

Step 7: “Tribal” art

Ok, take this one with a grain of salt. I just wanted to put some different geometric shapes to mimic the designs on Moana’s outfit. I painted some stray lines, dots, and zig zags. This is very free form. Do what you like on this one!

Step 8: Once the nail art is dry, place a clear coat of polish on all nails to seal it.

Ocean Color Wayfinder Manicure:

Step 1: Apply a base coat of clear polish.

Step 2: Apply 2 coats of ocean/turquoise color polish.

*You will want to make sure the polish is wet when you work on the designs for this manicure. Start working on the designs that use gems immediately after applying the second coat of polish.

Step 3: So Shiny!

I *love* the scene where Tamatoa the crab sings “So Shiny!” This nail art is meant to represent this part of the movie.

- - Option 1: Colorful Shiny Treasure I chose to make a shiny treasure that includes gold, rubies, emeralds, etc. Just take different color nail gems and apply them to the nail.
  - Option 2: My kid said she wanted another treasure that is just all gold. So we went for all gold gems.

Step 4: The Heart of Tafiti

Take a nail brush and some white nail polish to draw a swirl. Think of it as drawing a wide circular “S” shape. Dab some clear polish on a green nail gem and place it in the middle of the design.

Step 5: Hei Hei

I had a hard time figuring out how to make Hei Hei the rooster. But how could we have a Moana manicure without Hei Hei the rooster?

- 1. Place 3 green gems in the shape of a half moon along one corner of the nail bed. This will represent Hei Hei’s feathers.
  2. Place a black gem for the “eye” in the upper opposite corner of the nail.
  3. Place 2 or 3 red gems on above the black gem.
  4. Use a nail art brush to paint a small yellow triangle below the black gem to make Hei Hei’s beak.

Step 6: Shimmer nails- “The Stars”

This is the easiest design of all! Take a shimmery polish and paint it over the nails that do not have a design. These will represent the stars in the night sky. My youngest felt that the manicure needed to have as much bling as possible 😀