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No surprises here: Fall 2024’s best nail art trends are giving us exactly what we want for the autumn months ahead, including warmth, decadence, and a lot of sumptuous texture. And we mean a lot of texture, like faux croc and tortoiseshell, glinty glitter, and 3D gels, which can be used to create anything from delicate pearls to chunky cable-knit prints. This season’s batch of nail art ideas take their inspiration from the clothes and accessories we can’t wait to wear as the air starts to cool, the leaves start to change, and pumpkin spice lattes make their inevitable return to the Starbucks menu.
If you’re someone who prefers a more classic aesthetic, there’s also an array of simpler options, such as shimmering, muted pastels or a soft-goth take on the French manicure using shades of inky black and espresso instead of classic white. Or you can choose one of the more textured designs for an accent nail, as many of these looks incorporate the warm, richly colored polishes we can’t get enough of at this time of year (think deep, vampy reds, fiery oranges, and creamy chocolates).
To walk us through the best nail art inspo for the season—and how to re-create the looks at home—we consulted the industry’s top nail artists and manicurists. So start scrolling, and get ready to fully lean into fall vibes this year.
- Rita Pinto is the founder of Vanity Projects nail art salons in New York City and Miami.
- Sarah Chue is an editorial nail artist based in Los Angeles.
- Sadie Jordan is a nail artist and founder of Sadie J. Academy in London.
- Bana Jarjour is a Los Angeles-based nail artist.
- Lolly Koon is an editorial nail artist based in New York City.
Sumptuous Textures
Expect to see 3D-textured nails everywhere this fall, thanks to the new building gels on the market, says Rita Pinto, founder of Vanity Projects nail art salons in New York City and Miami. These 3D gels, available from brands like The Gel Bottle and nail artist-favorite Function of Vex, can be applied to any design to add nail texture. Says Sarah Chue, an editorial nail artist based in Los Angeles, “You can leave them clear over a gel color, go over them with a chrome polish, or on top of any other color to give it a fun pop to its overall look.”
These gels are also great for experimenting with the futuristic Y3K fashion trend that’s emerging on Pinterest and TikTok (“3D gel definitely gives sci-fi modern chic,” Chue says) or to embrace the coziness of the season by creating simplistic cable-knit-inspired designs, says London-based nail artist Sadie Jordan. The gels, which come in tubes or pots, stay where they are placed, so you just squeeze or dab the formula in the shape you want, then cure it, Los Angeles-based nail artist Vanessa Sanchez McCullough previously told Allure.
Conceptual Camo
“It seems as though Pharrell Williams’s [spring 2024] collection for Louis Vuitton has started a bit of a conceptual camo craze,” says Jordan, who predicts more abstract renderings of camouflage prints. Jordan’s manicure version of the trend is a mottled design that features three or four varying shades of green and brown, blended together with vertical, dry brushstrokes.
Start with a dark green base and let that dry or cure, depending on the type of polish you’re using. Next, use a dotting tool to randomly place small spots of different green and brown lacquers across the nail, and then take a dry ombré nail brush and blend the colors together, before locking the design in place with a topcoat.
Tortoiseshell Tips
With a palette of warm browns and oranges, a tortoiseshell print gives major autumnal vibes, says Los Angeles-based nail artist Bana Jarjour. Designer Marc Jacobs—who entered the nail art chat in a major way this year—is also a fan, Pinto mentions. In June, Jacobs added Swarovski crystals to his extra-long, tortoise-print nails.
This print is surprisingly easy to pull off at home, regardless of your nail art skills. “The base color is a combination of chocolate brown and yellow, but the yellow has to be a jelly finish,” says Jarjour, adding that you can transform any cream polish into jelly by mixing it with clear polish.
Start by mixing a brown and jelly-yellow polish onto a palette (Jarjour suggests a drop of brown into a brush’s worth of jelly-yellow). After it’s thoroughly blended, apply two coats of this new polish onto your nail. Let that dry completely, and then use the same brown polish to “paint random blobs all over your nail,” says Jarjour.
You can then blend the edges of the polish blobs by tapping them with your finger. (You can use a brush, but Jarjour finds fingers faster and easier.) “It’s important for the edges to be completely blended out to get that true tortoiseshell effect,” says Jarjour.
Let this dry, then repeat the step using smaller blobs placed slightly lower than your first set. Finally, go in with small touches of black, and then blend it all together with one last allover layer of the jelly-yellow color followed by a topcoat to seal your design.
Croc Print
A luxe faux-croc texture in warm, autumnal shades—like this pumpkin orange hue—is one of Jarjour’s favorite looks for the season. This look is best achieved with gel polish, and you can cover your entire nail in a croc print, just the tips (as seen here), or a mix of the two, she says.
After your base layer is cured and locked in with a topcoat, use a very fine brush to draw your print in the same color. Paint wide ovals down the center, circles along the sides, and fill them in. “I go in a little thick with the polish, but the trick is that before you cure it, you take a clear acrylic powder and pour it on top of the dots, which creates that 3D-textured effect,” says Jarjour. After curing, dust off any excess powder with a fluffy brush.
Ombré Cherry Nails
Red manicures for fall are as predictable as florals for spring. For autumn 2024, however, manicurists are taking a more abstract and unexpected approach to the seasonal hue. “Red and wine colors are always a go-to in the fall,” says Lolly Koon, an editorial nail artist based in New York City, “but this season, I’m keeping the cuticle area nude and adding the pop of color to the tips of the nail.”
But for Jason Wu’s fall 2024 show, Jin Soon Choi did the opposite, reversing the ombré by painting a black cherry color close to the cuticle and leaving the tips bare. When it comes down to it, there are no rules with this look. You can go for perfectly diffused or purposely deconstructed; choose a delicate blend of pink and crimson, like Koon, or follow Choi’s lead with a vampy, moody crimson. There’s a way to wear this look for every aesthetic.
A Dash of Glitter
Glitter isn’t just for New Year’s Eve, says Jarjour, who describes this design as “a way to do sparkly nails for fall without it feeling too festive.” A lot comes down to the colors you choose. Jarjour used a classic sheer pink, like OPI Bubble Bath, and then topped it with a clear polish that includes silver and gold chunks of glitter.
If you’re using traditional polish (versus gel), let the base shade set completely, and then paint the glitter polish onto a latex-free makeup sponge and tap it onto the nails. “That way, the sponge absorbs the clear polish that comes with the glitter,” Jarjour explains, “and you’re not painting coats and coats trying to get glitter coverage.” If the glitter isn’t looking just how you want it, she also recommends using a little brush to pick out sparkles from the bottle and fill in any gaps you might have.
Sparkling, Muted Pastels
“Muted pastels can be a subtle alternative to the usual dark colors we see on nails this time of year,” says Koon. It’s also an extension of the cool-toned makeup trend so prevalent at the fall 2024 runway shows. These dusty hues look great matte or shiny, but Koon prefers to add a layer of silvery glitter on top to create more dimension, then finish with a thin layer of the base polish on top to “give the sparkles some tint and make the overall effect more subtle.”
All-Gold Everything
All that glittered on the fall runways was gold nails, courtesy of designers like Di Petsa in London and The Blonds in New York. The designs came in a variety of styles, from simple to embellished, sparkly to sheer.
Koon is also obsessed with gilded tips this season, and found inspiration in the neutrals and gold tones she saw at Christian Dior’s fall 2024 couture show for the abstract design she created above.
After starting with a matte, off-white base, she added swoops of gold down the center of each nail. Koon used polish topped with gold powder, but this is another instance where you can use metallic 3D gel to get a true surrealist vibe, a là Schiaparelli.
Gothic French
The mini French is one trend that never seems to go away, it just changes with the seasons. And for fall 2024, nail artists are giving the French manicure a dark edge—literally. We love the contradiction of an ultra-classic design paired with subversive black or brown tones, as seen at shows like Luar and PatBO, for a perfect example of the soft-goth trend that continues to permeate Pinterest and TikTok.
Rave Nails
This fall, it’s eat, sleep, go to the salon for a rave-inspired manicure, repeat. Pinto has seen a rise in requests at Vanity Projects for bold, bright, dopamine-inducing nail art that’s made for dancing until the sun comes up. Designs can be as simple as a neon French manicure or high-contrast aura nails done in black and green—like at the fall 2024 Private Policy show in New York—or they can be as wild and crazy as you can imagine, incorporating 3D gel and different color combinations on every single nail.
Pearl Finishes
If you’re still loving the coquette aesthetic, bring those frilly, feminine vibes into fall with a pearly manicure, one of Pinto’s top trends for the season. The easiest way to try the look is by painting your nails an opalescent white; however, if you want to take it to the next level, you can add 3D elements with flat-back pearls (which you can order on Amazon or buy at a craft store) or mold them out of pearlescent 3D gel, a more advanced technique for trying this effect.
Read more about this year's biggest beauty trends:
- 9 Nail Art Trends You’re About to See Everywhere in 2024
- These Fall 2024 Nail Polish Shades Will Inspire You to Romanticize Your Life
- 30 Fall Hair Trends That'll Give You Main Character Energy
Now, watch Saweetie weigh in on popular beauty trends.
