The top 3 most instagrammable nail trends of all time

Instagram’s short history boasts an alarming amount of nail selfies

BEAUTYcrew Beauty Editor / May 05 2023

When we’re on the hunt for nail art to inspire our next salon visit, the first place we turn is Instagram. 

The app may only be 13 years old, but in its short life it’s managed to amass a wealthy archive of nail selfies. 

According to a recent report from Nails.co.uk, which analysed 8,645,678 nail selfies on Instagram, there are a handful of nail trends that have ascended the platform’s proverbial podium.

The top 3 most Instagrammable nail trends of all time

1/

Neon Nails

“Almost 1 in 5 nail selfies are neon nails,” said Nails.co.uk. “People are channeling their inner ‘80s style with bold neon nails.” 

“#neonnails takes up 18 per cent of the nail selfies analysed with 1.59 million photographs tagged with that hashtag,” they explained.

Image credit: @siietss_nailss

2/

Holographic Nails

“The second-biggest nail trend of all time is #holographicnails. Nails found that 1 in 10 (10 per cent) of nail selfies on Instagram are tagged with #holographicnails. The hashtag has more than 800,000 posts. The holographic pigments applied to the nails defract the light in a way that creates a uniform rainbow. Holographic nails were a huge trend last year and are one many wish to showcase on Instagram.”

Image credit: @mydumbnails

3/

3D Nails

“In third position are 3D nails with #3Dnails gathering over 600,000 posts on the social media platform. 3D nails were popular at this years Met Gala, with Lil Nas X, Lizzo and Rita Ora rocking 3D bling nail designs.”

Image credit: @amys.clients

Love to keep your finger on the pulse? These are the nail trends set to sweep salons in 2023.

Main image credit: @samrosenails

Briar Clark got her start in the media industry in 2017, as an intern for Marie Claire and InStyle. Since then, her keen interest in fashion and beauty has landed her gigs as a Digital Content Producer and Beauty Editor with titles like Girlfriend, Refinery29, BEAUTYcrew and beautyheaven. She loves the way seemingly innocuous topics like skin care and style have the ability to put a smile on people’s faces or make them think about themselves a little differently. A big believer in self love and experimentation, Briar has made a point of becoming the Australian beauty industry’s unofficial guinea pig for unusual treatments and daring hair trends. When she’s not testing out the latest beauty launches, Briar is big on broadening her horizons, mostly in the form of food but she’s also partial to travelling to new destinations both near and far (and of course, allocating an extra bag to bring their best beauty offerings home with her).