How the bare nails trend became a class issue

In recent months, Paloma Buddemeier has watched a stream of people walk into her nail salon with the goal of looking as if they'd never been there at all.

"It's crazy," the owner of Wumman Spa in London says.

These customers still get their nails filed, buffed, and trimmed. "You still do the cuticle, you do the soaking and hydrate everything," says Buddemeier, "but you just put no polish on."

Driving this, she says, is a viral craze for bare-looking nails.

In recent months, artsy shots of glossy naked nails have been flooding social media and taking over fashion runways and red carpets, which some are viewing as the latest symbol of "quiet luxury".

But critics argue the bare nails trend actually says something about class, the hamster wheel of beauty standards, and who gets to define what is considered tasteful.

Nail art's historical and creative roots are linked back to black, Latino, and Asian communities and the suggestion that bare nails are now a sign of high status could stigmatise bold manicures, they say.

"That trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities," beauty journalist Kristina Rodulfo tells the BBC.

"They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty."

For some, though, the choice is less about a dislike of bold nails and more about simplifying their routine.

Some converts say they're ditching polish as a way of rebelling against an entrenched female beauty standard or to save time and money. Others just love the look. Then, there are some women who've long left their nails alone, amused to find their routine – or lack thereof – suddenly in vogue.

For years, Irish TV presenter Angela Scanlon marched herself to a nail salon every fortnight, a routine that started when she was living in New York in the 2000s. There, she says, manicures were so universal they felt like a uniform. But it soon became a chore.

Scanlon would have everything from thin, shiny shellac to sturdier "Builder In A Bottle" gel manicures layered onto her nails every other week without fail.

"It wasn't like I was in my head going: 'I must go because Dave from Hull is going to be disgusted if I'm on This Morning next week without a full set'," the Radio 2 presenter says. "I just added it to the list of things that we must do... in the way you would wash your hair."

Eventually, in a moment of clarity, Scanlon decided to stop going, in a bid to free up time and mental bandwidth.

"I heard myself saying to people: 'Ugh, my god, I have to go and get my nails done.'

"And I thought: 'I probably don't need to do this anymore'."

Scanlon's posts about her decision to ditch the continuous manicure blew up on Substack and Instagram earlier this year. She seemed to have tapped into a vein.

Simple nails were in the spotlight at New York Fashion Week in February, with Marc Jacobs among those sending his models out polish-less, though some fashionistas argue this is not new.

But beauty magazines have declared "All The Cool Girls Are Quietly Quitting Manicures, external", that "Bare Nails Are the New Status Symbol, external" of "Polished Women" and that "Manicures Are No Longer Classy, external".

And now, there's a never-ending stream of posts on Insta and TikTok promoting shiny, natural-looking nails, and detailing how you can get them yourself. The look has become so hyped some have gone full circle, booking in salon appointments to mimic it.

At the Wumman Spa nail salon, some of Buddemeier's clients sit in the chair for hours, as nail artists build them hyper-realistic fake nails in sheer, glossy neutrals, à la Zoe Kravitz and Zendaya.

Londoner Khadija says she was once a fan of elaborate nail art but pivoted to bare nails earlier this year.

"It's just really chic. And I love less is more, I love minimalism... less consumerism and just self-care things that you could probably do at home."

Reluctantly joining the bandwagon thanks to the rising cost of living is her friend Emmanuella. "It's just too expensive now," she says.

"I think getting [your] nails done is tacky now, because who's got an hour to waste?" one 25-year-old tells the BBC, adding, "also, I lift weights in the gym, so I don't want to snap a nail and waste money."

But there are those who think the trend - or the way it's being discussed by some - belies something more sinister.

Manicures have been whispering messages about the wearer's position in society for as long as they have existed, according to fashion journalist Suzanne E. Shapiro.

"Women's bodies - and sense of self-presentation - have always held huge political and cultural significance," Shapiro, who wrote Nails: The Story of The Modern Manicure, tells the BBC.

Even back in 13th century Imperial China, the lengthy talons grown by nobility and the delicately carved brass nail shields which usually guarded them were a symbol of a life unmarred by manual labour.

A single layer of the rose-tinted waxy salves which were popular in the 1800s was a sign of vigour and health, but two layers - in an era when cosmetics and artificial beauty were tied to virtue - was the mark of a vain or "loose" woman.

And the red at-home nail lacquer, released by Revlon in the early 1930s, was a badge of honour for modern women rebelling against that kind of oppressive judgement.

But it was women of colour who really made manicures an accessible and fashionable form of self-expression, historians say.

Entertainer Josephine Baker, disco icons Dianna Ross and Donna Summer, and Olympic gold-medal-winning sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner - whose dramatic acrylic sets often distracted headline writers from her record-setting performances - have all pioneered nail art.

"These were times that it was hard for black women to be able to express themselves," says celebrity nail artist Celeste Hampton.

"[Nail art] allowed black women to express our form of softness, our form of femininity, our form of beauty."

And when waves of Vietnamese refugees gave rise to the nail bar in the 1970s, professional manicures were no longer the preserve of the rich.

But, like many luxuries, as they became more popular and more accessible to the masses, the wealthy began pivoting – a textbook example of behaviour known as "counter signalling", Rudolfo says.

"The same way that logo bags are considered gauche or quiet luxury is more aspirational, bare nails are considered the trend now.

"The examples are almost always white women or celebrities... [and] they'll often conflate class and taste with that bareness."

Others point out bare nails often demand their own time-consuming and costly routine.

"The irony in all this is these natural nails are not natural either," Shapiro says. "They also require a lot of grooming and sometimes pretty premiere services."

Few would argue there aren't valid feminist questions for the beauty industry to answer, around unrealistic standards for example, but the largely female-run nail sector also feels empowering for many women.

"I feel like nail care has very much had a 'for women, by women' sort of ethos around it," Shapiro says. "The first salon opened in New York City was owned by a woman, and she was a remarkably independent one... a lot of the first entrepreneurs offering product lines, opening salons were women."

Hampton admits she's saddened by the way trends have been – and continue to be - weaponised.

"We're taking the fun out of nails... Anyone should be able to wear what they like - nail polish or bare nails," she says.

"Why is there an argument? Why is there beef?"

Scanlon too is a little baffled.

"For me, it's like just stop judging ourselves and everybody else... Some people like to have the nails done, some people don't," she says.

"I suppose the question that I was posing was, is it doing anything for you?

"The truth of it is: it's not that deep."