As someone with cuticles that need constant cutting and more hangnails than the average person, I’m fascinated by the fact that both celebrities and TikTok beauty girls have neither. I’m so fascinated, in fact, that I had to ask the best nail artist in the business exactly how everyone but me was suddenly showing off cuticle-free, perfectly polished nails. The answer: Russian manicures.
According to Dr. Dana Stern, a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in nails, Russian manicures are a form of dry (i.e., no soaking) manicure. Its key features include an emphasis on complete cuticle removal; careful, precise removal of previous gels; and "intricate attention to a pristine polish application." While the technique has been mainstream abroad for quite some time, it’s recently becoming more and more popular stateside—just look to the TikTok stats for proof. "Russian manicure" has accumulated more than 68,000 hashtags on the platform, while Google searches for the term have gone up 75 percent in the last year.
