Summer nail trends for 2024 take the traditional summer nail colors and nail art designs and make them more gorgeous than they’ve ever been.
This year, we have everything from the new glass jelly nails trend to the traditional bright and beautiful neon nails trend.
Indulge in summer manicures with delicious fruity looks, beach scenes, modern flowers, easy skittles and ombre manicures, and more.
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Summer Nail Trends: Jelly Nails
Jelly nails have been trending for a few years now and it has exploded even more this summer. Sheer glassy nails are a look no matter what color they are.
The trend started with acrylic nails when nail technicians added a drop of nail polish to the monomer liquid to tint the clear acrylic.
It spilled over into the nail polish world and now you can find all sorts of juicy reds, pinks, and more to wear on your nails.
For the summer, nail polish brands have been creating jelly nail polish in pretty summery shades like cerulean and ocean blues.
These jelly polishes look amazing with nail art over them as well. There’s something about the sheer background that makes it look really cool. The design stands out more.
For summer nail designs, I love to use blue jelly nail polish to look like the water. Here is a mermaid scene I created using a stamping plate.
I think the sheer blue worked really well for the water. I used glitter over the middle finger to add a little glam to the dark castle. For the rest I used the reverse stamping technique.
But even without a design on it, this blue jelly nail polish looks absolutely beautiful.
Summer Nail Trends: Yellow Nails
One of the biggest summer nail trends for 2024 is yellow nails. I’m seeing all different shades of yellow on so many people.
Neon yellow has always been popular because of its fluorescence, but now we are seeing buttercream yellows, floral yellows, mustard yellows, and more.
I am here for it because it is literally the color of happiness. It only makes sense that the color of sunshine will uplift us, just like the sun.
And now with so many pretty yellow shades to choose from, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one that goes nicely with your skin tone.
I’m also seeing a lot of floral nail art being created with beautiful shades of bright yellow. People are wearing white nail polish on a few nails, yellow on the rest and painting yellow flowers over the white.
These flowers can be huge sunflowers or small minimalistic flowers.
Yellow truly is one of the most perfect nail colors for summer.
Matte nail polish is also trending for the summer. Finding a shade of yellow you like that comes with a matte finish might be difficult but you can just get matte top coat to mattify any shade.
If nail designs aren’t your thing but you still want a little something extra, try a glitter yellow nail polish look.
If you can’t find yellow glitter nail polish that you like, you can always just add a glitter top coat over your favorite shade of yellow.
With so many glitter nail polish options, you can change up the look of your yellow nails frequently.
Pairing yellow with other trending colors like gray works really well. There’s something about pale gray next to bright yellow that is so visually pleasing.
I personally like things more of the minimal side. You can create so many amazing looks with different placement of stripes and polka dots.
Summer Nail Trends: Fruit Nail Art
Fruit nail art is another one of those fun summer nail trends. Juicy fruit nail designs are perfect to wear in the hot summer weather.
The added bonus is that it’s not that hard to create these looks. A strawberry manicure can be done by just adding polka dots over a strawberry nail shade and adding some green lines for leaves at the top,
To create perfect dots very quickly, you can use a dotting tool, which is also great for many other nail designs so it’s a good thing to have in your nail art supplies.
Watermelon nail art is also pretty easy. For this one you don’t want perfect dots, but you can still use the dotting tool by dragging each dot down slightly.
Paint the tips to look like the inner and outer shades of green of the watermelon and you have a super cute summer nail design.
This summer is all about bright colors with a pop of pastel. Painting orange slices on your nails and adding some leaves in a pretty summer blue is an idea you may want to try if this is your thing.
While past summers were all about juicy fruit designs done with jelly nail polish, this summer citrus azul nails are trending.
To create the look, pair a pretty summer blue with a citrus fruit design like an orange. If you want to really get fancy you could even ask your nail tech to make your orange 3D.
So summery, so fresh, so cute.
Summer Nail Trends: Beach Scenes
What would summer be without beach themed nail art? Of course we love a good anchor, rope and striped design done with ocean blues and white.
If you can’t paint these yourself, there are stamping plates out there that could give you perfect stripes and anchors every time.
You could also find really cute nail decals that are easy to apply and you will still have that perfect looking design.
You will also see a lot of maximalist nail designs this summer. These are fun because it can just be some cool summer colors thrown together in an abstract type of look.
None of it has to look perfect. You can use a makeup sponge to dab on different colors over white nail polish to get a funky effect similar to this one.
You can even throw a stamped design on top of the color clusters.
Ombre nail designs are perfect for the summer too because when you do them in blue and beige they look like a beach scene.
You can add whatever you want on top of your ombre design from imperfect and smudged white lines to look like waves to gold star charms.
In 2024 we also saw a resurgence of the French manicure, but with different twists. You can do this in all different colors, or you can paint some color over the white tips.
To keep up with summer nail trends this year, try this with some blue over your white tips. Use a makeup sponge to dab the color on wherever you want it.
You can even add a more dramatic touch by adding a blue glitter line between the white and neutral nail polish.
Summer Nail Designs: Skittles and Ombre Manicures
Skittles and ombre manicures are all the rage this summer, and the best part is that it’s so easy to do you can create it yourself.
Try mixing neon shades with pale blue shades for the ultimate summer ombre look.
A pretty rainbow set done in bright summer colors is definitely part of the summer nail trends for 2024. It’s like a dose of happiness for your nails.
It doesn’t get any easier than this but yet it’s very beautiful, interesting and eye catching. You can get so creative with different color combinations to really get the vibe you’re going for.
Pairing bold reds and oranges with pretty blues, purples and yellows works so well for a summer manicure.
If you like a softer look, you can try some milky pastel shades for your skittles manicure. The possibilities are endless.
Now we are also seeing these manicures with with a twist. Instead of horizontal ombre designs, try a vertical ombre look.
Chrome nails is also a huge trend this summer and adding chrome over an ombre manicure has an absolutely beautiful result.
Maximalism is in and if you like the skittles nail trend, try a different color on each nail but make each one with a different design.
You don’t have to be an artist to pull this off either. You can keep it basic with polka dots and glitters and still achieve a maximalist nail look.
If you like to keep things more on the simple side, try a skittles manicure but instead of doing it with all different colors of the rainbow, try it with different shades of the same hue.
Add a polka dot design to make this manicure even more interesting.
Shades of blues, greens, and teal nail polish always work well in the summer and we are seeing even more of this in 2024.
Summer Nail Trends: Beachy Matte Pastel Nails
Pastels are usually trending in spring but this year we are seeing them all over in the summer too. There’s something so beachy about matte nails, and pairing a matte top coat with a pastel color gives the ultimate summer beach vibes.
Of course you can wear them plain or you can add some nail art. You can create very interesting looks with self-adhesive gold nail tape also.
You can just add a touch for a minimalistic look or you can go for broke and add lots for a maximalist nail look.
And back to polka dots, just to show you how many cute designs you can come up with by just changing up colors, sizes, and placements of the dots.
Matte robin’s egg blue is such a cute color for the summer and it looks so adorable with just some simple polka dots.
Whatever your style is, I’m sure you can find a look you like amongst the summer nail trends of 2024.
And if not, forget the trends and just rock your own style!
Would you wear any of these nail designs?
Related: 12 Pretty Pink Nail Designs to Level Up Your Manicure
