This Is The Best Nude Nail Polish For Your Skin Tone

If you’ve been bored with nail art lately, a nude nail polish is a subtle but stunning option for your next manicure. While a neutral color will go with virtually every outfit, finding the right shade to compliment your skin tone can be tough. Too often, certain taupes and browns aren’t a match — they're either too light or blend into your complexion. But with a little trial and error (plus advice from the experts), finding the best nude nail polish for your skin tone won’t be a struggle.

“Nudes can be tricky because you don’t want to wind up with the dreaded mannequin hands — where your skin and nail color are the same,” Miss Pop, a New York City-based nail artist whose clients include Ariana Grande and Janelle Monáe, tells TZR. To avoid the aforementioned mannequin hands, Miss Pop suggests choosing a shade with a touch of light-catching shimmer.

The golden rule when shopping for nude nail polish is to test a shade with your skin’s undertone in mind to ensure it will be visible once applied. As for which nude goes with each undertone, Los Angeles-based editorial and campaign nail artist Amy Le recommends pink bases for cool undertones, yellow bases for warm undertones, cool bases for fair skin with pink undertones, and nude or warm shades for olive undertones. If you’re not sure of your skin’s undertone Le suggests matching the color of your nail beds instead. “There's a good chance that it will match your skin tone,” she says.

You can also play with different finishes to create various looks. “A sheer polish has a very clean end finish,” says Le. “An opaque polish has a very trendy, stylish finish. A matte polish over any nude polish is just a level up in the trendy [and] stylish category.” She also notes that many of her clients will choose gold as a “glammed-up nude.”

To save you from extra swatching, TZR tapped Miss Pop, Le, and a handful of other top manicurists including Betina R. Goldstein, Maki Sakamoto, and Casey Herman to find out their go-to shades. See the experts’ picks for the best nude nail polishes for every skin tone, below.

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