'Clean girl beauty' has swept across every aspect of our routines, from barely-there makeup to perfumes that smell like freshly laundered sheets. But nowhere has the trend had a greater impact than on our manicures. From micro-French tips to milky polishes and glazed-doughnut manis, every nail trend that surfaces embraces a polished yet seriously understated aesthetic. Now, in what may be its most refined iteration yet, the clean girl nail movement has given rise to a new category of nail product designed to elevate the natural nail with an almost undetectable gloss. Enter: nail illuminators.
“A nail illuminator is a treatment-style product with light-reflecting pigments and subtly coloured micro-pearls, designed to neutralise discolouration and enhance the natural nail,” explains expert manicurist Ami Streets. “It differs from traditional nail polish in that it uses tone-correcting micro-pigments to create a clean, bright, ‘lit-from-within’ effect while keeping the nail line visible, whereas nude or translucent polishes rely on beige or pink pigments to add colour and partially blur imperfections for a more classic polished look.”
