French manicure is a classic nail design for a long time. French nails are formed by complementation or contrast brought about by different colors between fingertips and nails.
The main manicure types that you will come across are basic, acrylic, gel (including Shellac), French and dip powder.
French manicures work on both long and short nails (with the latter rising in popularity, potentially due to people seeking out the most hygienic nail length possible). Plus, the tips can be painted onto nude or bare nails, so you can let your nails grow out without your nails looking awkward and having to run back to the salon for another appointment.
On this list, you’re sure to find at least one French manicure trend that speaks to your aesthetic. Show your favorite to your nail artists at your next appointment or experiment with painting them on yourself.
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Neon
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Red Fruits
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Negative Space
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Tie-Dye
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V-Shaped Tips
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Butterflies
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Mix and Match
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French x
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Holographic French
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Sixties Pop
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Pointilist
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Cheetah Girls
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Fall Fire
Similar to a mix-and-match design, this assemblage of styles is all held together by the browns and greens in its color palette.
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Holiday-Themed
This delightful Halloween manicure is a cross between French and ombre, with holographic white, pumpkin orange, and neon orange working together to create ten life-size pieces of painted-on candy corn. Whether you save this for October, update the colors to reflect the holiday of your choice, or just get your candy corn on all year long, this love child of two trends is a nice way to nod to French without getting bogged down in traditio
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Floral French
This spring-ready manicure looks like it’s stepped straight out of the Delia*s catalogue, and that’s the highest compliment I know how to give. Just a few twists — mixing up the colors and adding little daisies — give it a young, sweet update. “French tip is one of my favorite nail art designs because there are so many possibilities,”
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With just a few strokes of the brush, Emily updates this French by…oh, about a century. “Sometimes I enjoy leveling up a classic French with a fun color palette, like rainbow pastel or neon,” she says. “Other times I incorporate geometric or organic shapes for a funkier twist.” Here, she pairs basic black with periwinkle shade Kanpai OPI!
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Instagram/@heygreatnails17/22Half French
It takes a true artist like Aistè P. of @heygreatnails to be able to “randomly,” as she puts it, create a look this chic. “[I] experimented with variations of designs while trying to create a modern twist,” she says. Mission accomplished. While it keeps the two-color palette of a traditional French, the creative use of negative space makes for a very contemporary flourish.
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Abstract Neon
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Grandma’s Little Helper
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Heart on Your Finger
This design takes clever advantage of an almond-shaped nail, using the pointy tip as the starting point for a hand-drawn heart.
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