Aquarium Nails: The Nail Trend We’re Asking Our Manicurist For ASAP

We’re pretty big into nails. When we’re not filing them down, shaping them, buffing them and popping into our local manicurist for fresh gels on the reg, we’re searching the #NailSwag tag to keep up with the latest nail-related trends.

And we thought we’d seen it all during our daily Insta scroll, until we spotted aquarium nails: the cool new trend that turns your nails into mini aquariums.

The trend uses hollowed out acrylic press-ons, which are cut in half and then filled with glitter, gems and other bits of nail art. The inside of the nail is then topped up with oil, and glued back together, so that when you move, all the cool stuff inside the nail moves too – kinda like a snow globe. Although this may seem very time consuming the finished product looks very cool and gave us some serious nail envy.

Andrea Horan, owner of nail brand Tropical Popical loves them too. “I think they are only gas! I love seeing something different and people being creative and having the craic with their appearance,” she told us. “As Iris Apfel says, ‘More is more and less is a bore!’ If you can have an aquarium on your nails, all the better!”

Want them? You’ll probably need to pop to your local salon, as the process is pretty technical, but if you’ve got an hour to spare you’ll need a set of hollowed out acrylics, scissors, nail glue, glitter, and a lot of patience. This video talks you through the step-by-step. Us though? We’re getting a manicurist to do the job for us.

• Beauty
• nails
• trends