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Nothing says easy elegance quite like a French manicure. It goes with absolutely everything, from casual looks to formalwear. After a little early-2000s time on a downswing, the combo of a pink, translucent base and white tips has become a beautiful no-brainer for so many of us. But when you want the concept of a French manicure but with a little more edge, nothing balances sophistication and subversion quite like swapping in black tips—just like Demi Lovato did.
Lovato made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, promoting her new book, One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food, and her tour, It's Not That Deep. Yeah, she's definitely been keeping busy. But she always makes time to sit down with nail artist Natalie Minerva, most recently to get a black-tipped French manicure.
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“For Demi’s black French, we did a base color combination, or what I call ‘nail foundation,’” Minerva tells Allure, explaining that she can customize the hue with two shades of polish for a more seamless look. “I used one coat of OPI Bare My Soul, which is a lighter-toned milky nude, and one coat of Put It in Airplane Mode to give it a warmer hue. This made the base feel more accurately matched to her skin tone.”
From there, Minerva switched to one of the most iconic black polishes on the market. “I used OPI Black Onyx to create a medium-thickness French that matched the free edge of her round-shaped natural nails.”
While it may not be the most out-there option when it comes to nail art, it absolutely makes a major impact when you choose a color other than white for French tips—especially a bold black in contrast to a traditional pinky-nude base. It's basically “do no harm, but take no shit” in manicure form.
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