How to create your own 'coffin nails'

According to Pinterest, which featured the coffin nail in its 'Annual 100' round up for 2016, the look was one of the top trends from 2015 predicted to carry over into this year.

Coffin nails are long acrylics with a square tip that is filed down so that it is narrower than the base -- hence their morbid name. (For the squeamish, they are alternatively sometimes referred to as 'ballerina nails'.)

The easiest way to recreate the look is to take square acrylics and file them in at the sides to narrow the tips. According to Nail Career Education's Suzie, the easiest way for professionals to do this is with a drill file on a low setting. However, if you aren't in possession of such machinery then don't panic -- there are plenty of other options.

Nail vlogger Ninja Nail Fairy suggests creating your own coffin-shaped tips using acrylic, using a brush to pat the material into shape while malleable and using a standard file to neaten the edges up afterwards, angling in from the side walls of the nail for a sharp edge.

Dazzle Glam Nails, on the other hand, recommends using long-length falsies and creating the blunt top by trimming them with nail clippers. She then uses clippers along the sides of the tip to create the inverted shape required, and points out that stiletto tip falsies can also be transformed into coffin tips using this technique. She then applies the tips, buffs the entire nail for smoothness and applies acrylic over the top.

If acrylics aren't your thing, then Jasmine Shaw has created a tutorial explaining how to get the look using just false nails and clipping and filing them by hand into a coffin shape.