hey pete, You do not need a database for css. I think the information given has either been misunderstood or incorrect.
I will outline the steps i took in web development to where i am now so hopefully this will help you.
CSS : Cascading Style Sheets
Its a "language" that will deal with the manipulation of tags , page properties etc within a webpage.
Example: in html you would have
, well in css you can manipulate these ul and li tags. so in css ul, li{padding-left:10px;}
I would suggest to check this website out for indepth CSS http://www.w3schools.com/Css/default.asp
You will want to use Xhtml in your website so while you are on w3cschools check out !doctype and xhtml. the more you learn to put these into sites the better it is for everyone using different browsers etc.
A good language to start before dealing with php , SQL (databases) etc is Javascript, from there go to Ajax or Jquery. Again you can search these on the net.
After that like Jquery php is a server sided language i would recommend start by looking at cookie long-in forms.
After you do that then look at Php driven login forms that connect to a mySQL database. (you need a server for this or use an application called xampp)
Good luck my friend!