30 Nail Tip Designs to Elevate Your Manicure

meet the expert

Brittney Boyce is a celebrity manicurist whose clients include Megan Fox and Kim Kardashian.
Mabelyn Alva is a manicurist and the creative director at Paintbox,

Get inspired by browsing 30 stunning nail tip designs below.

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Chrome French

“My favorite go-to is a chrome French,” says Boyce. “It offers a cool and edgy look while remaining within most people's comfort zones." This look was painted on Aprés Nail Gel-X Tips.

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Flame French

Boyce made this look with Aprés Nail’s Gel-X Tips and polish in the shade in Pucker Up ($15). “I love hand-painted designs,” says Boyce. “The flame tip isn’t for everyone, but I’m obsessed. If you can pull it off, it’s FIRE!”

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Geometric Tips

Create this look on your own or buy it in press-on form from Paintbox. The Twosome Press-Ons ($28) feature a geometric nude and coral design. It's one of the brand's latest designs.

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Negative Space Tips

This nail tip design features two curvilinear lines with negative space between them. It's a nice way to inject subtle color into your manicure.

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Tortoiseshell Tips

Tortoise nail tips designs — Instagram/@nails_and_beauty_by_daisy

Tortoiseshell nails are inherently glamorous, and having them in tip form just ups the chic factor.

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Hearts

Although these heart tips are perfect for Valentine's Day, you can get away with wearing them year-round for a simple and sweet pop of red.

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Golden Glitter

If you don't have the patience to create a crisp, rounded tip, you can apply glitter to your tips and brush it down to ombré effect. Minimal effort maximum impact!

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Floral Tips

Florals can be a sweet take on tips. This design keeps things delicate and beautiful, exclusively using white flowers and leaves.

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Pastel Over-Under

Instead of concentrating color just on the tips, this design makes use of the entire border of the nail with razor-thin lines swooping down into the bottom half-moons. It's a minimal, but elevated look.

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Ombré Tips

Ombre nail tip designs — Instagram/@gossipandgloss

With nail polish and a makeup sponge, you can make ombré tips with ease. This look fades a bright yellow into a neutral milky beige.

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Hawaiian Tropics

Brighten your spirits with this look, which adorns yellow tips with pink tropical flowers. It was created using polishes from The Gel Bottle Inc.

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Tipsy Tips

This look takes a simple brown tip to the next level with wavy blue and beige additions.

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Cool Blues

Several shades of cool blue were used to create this gradient double-tip look. It was created on top of Aprés Nail Natural Stiletto Short ($17) gel tips.

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Multicolored French

Boyce made this look using all Aprés Nail green polishes, including Kung Fu Tortoise ($15), Lime Pop ($15), Gen X Slime ($15), and Luna Luna ($15). “Multicolored nails are super fun and easy to get done,” says Boyce. “You don’t have to search for the perfect nail artist to achieve this look.”

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Outside the Lines

This look is a really playful take on nail tip designs. The tips themselves are abstract and accented by hot pink squiggles.

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Cloud Nine

Made with six shades from The Gel Bottle Inc — Blue Steel ($19), Daisy ($19), Periwinkle ($19), Forget Me Not ($19), and Silk ($19) — this design turns tips into ethereal clouds.

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Starry Noir

Noire nail tip designs — Instagram/@nails_and_beauty_by_daisy

Ink London's Nude Flubber ($19) serves as the base of this sharp tip design. Instead of a rounded tip, this look has thin and angular tips painted with Madam Glam's Perfect Black ($22).

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Midnight Snowflakes

Snowflake nail tip designs — Instagram/@nails_and_beauty_by_daisy

Nail tip designs can also get seasonal. This snowflake design uses three shades from Ink Nails London — Bobby Dallas Shimmer ($22), Nude Flubber ($19), and White ($12) — and is perfect for winter.

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Seashell Tips

Shells nail tip designs — Instagram/@nailsbymaki.nyc

This ornate seashell-inspired pink nail tip design emulates line drawings with thin black outlines separating the ridges of the shell.

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Color Coded

This colorful look features a different shade on each nail using Gel Care polishes in the shades Granite Purple ($20), Barbara Pink ($20), Kelly Green ($20), Cornflower Blue ($20), Corallium ($20), and Rose BB Cream ($20). Each nail is finished with a matching heart gem from Deco Beauty Jewels Stickers ($10).

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Monochrome Ombré

This monochrome chocolate brown ombré design creates a bit of an optical illusion.

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Wreath Tips

Wreath nail tip designs — Instagram/@Danaturenails

The ultimate Christmas manicure, this design features small green wreaths with red ribbons as the tips of a few nails. The red ribbon is enhanced by the addition of two solid red nails.

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Reptilian Tips

Colors on Colors nail tip designs — Instagram/@klawsbysonia

This reptilian look features a mix of bright, punchy colors painted on top of the Aprés Sculpted Stiletto Long ($17) gel tips.

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Lime Jelly

Because this look features Aprés Sculpted Almond Long ($17) gel-x tips, which are clear, it has a cool effect where the jelly color on the tips (Acid Lime ($15)) is totally translucent.

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Blackout Tips

Blackout nail tip designs — Instagram/@klawsbysonia

This chic look features black wavy tips, and the matte top coat ups the cool factor!

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Celestial Tips

Celestial nail tip designs — Instagram/@klawsbysonia

This celestial design features onyx tips accented with pretty gold stars..

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French Lemons

This design features thin, baby blue French tips and a little lemon, daisy, and gold leaf accent at the base of the nail.

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Trippy Tips

Wavy nail tip designs — Instagram/@jess_nails_it

These tips get trippy and wavy with a stack of vibrant colors. Although there's a lot going on, each tip follows a similar wave pattern, so the look isn't overwhelming.

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Baby Blue

Adding a thin white line to these French blue tips gives this look a really nice anchor.

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Retro Tips

Thanks to the use of muted retro shades of blue and brown, this look is graphic yet subtle. The black outlines add to the graphic effect.

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30 French Tip Nail Designs to Elevate Your Manicure