Sorbet Nails Are Summer’s Fresh Spin On The Ice Cream Manicure

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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 ice cream. 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 ombre 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.

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.

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 ice creams were 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.

When Westmoreland did my manicure, she opted for two coats of 02 Blanc Orage across the whole of my nail, before adding a sorbet lemon 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.

Fiona’s sorbet nails

Courtesy of Fiona Embleton

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 nailsThe nail polishes:

Manucurist Active Glow in Blueberry

Bio Sculpture Peach Sorbet Polish

Chanel Le Vernis in 195 Poete

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Nail Paint in 120 Berry Sorbet

The polish boosters:

Wear on its own with a colorful French tip or layer on top of a pastel nail polish for a refreshing ice-like finish.

Les Mains Hermès Nail Polish Limited Edition in 02 Blanc Orage

Manucurist Active Shine

More sorbet nails inspo:Apricot sorbet nails

Peach sorbet nails

Sunset sorbet nails

Lemon sorbet nails

Two scoops sorbet nails

Mint sorbet nails

Ombre sorbet nails

Strawberry sorbet nails

Watercolor sorbet nails

Watermelon sorbet nails

Metallic sorbet nails

Mismatched sorbet nails

Jelly sorbet nails

This story was originally published in Glamour UK.