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Is it even summer if you’re not spending more time in the freezer aisle? Our favorite treat has inspired the ice cream manicure, but now sorbet nails are making a splash with their colorful yet minimalist look.
Sorbet nails are exactly as they sound: a manicure that evokes the look and feel of sorbet. Texture-wise, they also mimic the same look as the dessert they’re named after. While ice cream is made of churned milk, sorbet is water-based and has a lighter, icier feel.
Similarly, the traditional ice cream manicure seamlessly blends a creamy pastel base with a soft white tip (imagine a cloud of whipped cream). Sorbet nails, meanwhile, also feature pastel and fruity polishes but these read slightly translucent—and, if there’s a tip, it’s a sorbet hue topping a glassy nude nail.
Some sorbet nails lean into the ombré nail trend with a burst of juicy color on the tips, blurring into a sheer nude base, like this peach sorbet nail by celebrity manicurist Queenie Nguyen, who counts Florence Pugh and Jessica Alba as clients.
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Others are inspired by jelly nails and milk nails trends, keeping things fun and fresh for those who like a hint of color without straying into block brights or neon territory in the warmer months. “It’s not about neons this summer,” says celebrity manicurist Harriet Westmoreland, who tells me she is firmly on team pastel this season.
But perhaps the most wearable iteration of sorbet nails is a glassy, barely-there base paired with a soft, fruity shade of polish at the tip.
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Defined by their slightly watery finish, the beauty of sorbet nails is that they can also take their cue from the low-key princess nails and glass manicure trend that are flooding our social media feeds right now.
Case in point: I recently attended an Hermès S/S nails event, where sorbet was served alongside sorbet manicures. At their core was a sheer milky shade called 02 Blanc Orage (pictured left on Westmoreland’s Instagram carousel), with tiny shimmery particles that glisten in the light in the same way as ice. It instantly transformed every pastel hue into a sorbet nail.
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When Westmoreland did my manicure, she opted for two coats of 02 Blanc Orage across the whole of my nail, before adding a lemon sorbet micro-French tip. “People are still loving the French tip but they’re pairing it with a milky polish and a pastel tip,” she says.
Another popular pairing on the day included painting a soft pink base, and then icing it up with a coat of 02 Blanc Orage over the top.
Either way, sorbet nails are the perfect sweet spot for anyone who doesn’t want to go too bare or too bright with their manicure this summer.
How to get sorbet nails
Wear on its own with a colorful French tip or layer on top of a pastel nail polish for a refreshing ice-like finish.
More sorbet nails inspo
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