I Tried the Ballerina Nail Trend: See Photos

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: getting my nails done is a chore, but a necessary one. When my nails look good, I feel good, and I’m not willing to give that up — even if my manicure appointments take two whole hours. Thankfully, I can go roughly four weeks in between my manicure appointments because I now use builder gel, but I still like to stick with natural nails that grow out easily, no bright shades or intricate nail art. When I try trends, I typically stick to neutral options like the naked french manicure or I just go for a nice nude or milky white hue. When it comes to shape, I almost always go with almond, but a few months ago while scrolling Pinterest, I came across ballerina nails, and suddenly I was obsessed. The shape was unlike anything I had ever done before.

While the trend has to do with both nail color and the shape, the latter is what ultimately sets it apart. “To break it down, it’s a monochromatic french tip in an almost-coffin-shape nail that resembles ballet pointe shoes,” Orly educator An Cao previously told PS. “It’s really girly and pretty.”

I’ve never had the desire to get coffin nails before, but for some reason, the ballerina nail trend just appealed to me. I decided to try it out just once — and ended up getting it as my go-to nail shape months after. There’s just something about the look that I fell in love with. It’s edgy, it’s cool, and it adds a little something to your manicure.

How to Get Ballerina Nails

The most important thing when trying out this trend is the shape, so celebrity manicurist Vanessa Sanchez-McCullough and I spent a lot of time getting it right. We started with a typical dry manicure, removing the previous gel I had on my nails and trimming my cuticles. Then we moved on to getting the ballerina nail shape perfected. My nails were in their typical almond shape then, meaning we needed to square off the top, file the sides, and round the corners. My natural nails were fairly long already (thanks, builder gel), but with this trend, the longer, the better. I actually wish I had a little more length to make the shape really pop, but I was happy enough with what I had. (If you want to add more length, you can always opt for extensions.) From there, we applied a coat of bonder, which we cured for 10 seconds.

Next, Sanchez-McCullough used CND Plexigel ($27) in Soft Blush for the base. One of my favorite things about the CND Plexigel line is that it only takes ten seconds to cure versus a full minute, so the time goes by a lot faster. From there, Sanchez-McCullough built out the white tips using the CND Plexigel ($22) in Porcelain. Porcelain created a soft, diffused french tip effect over the blush-pink base.

We finished the manicure off with a shiny top coat, and I was ready to go. Although I don’t plan to do any ballet in my ballerina nails, I do plan to keep the trend going strong.

Renee Rodriguez is a staff writer and social producer for PS. She writes across all verticals, but her main areas of expertise focus on fashion and beauty content with an emphasis on reviews and editor experiments. She also produces social content for the PS TikTok and Instagram accounts.