How the French Manicure Went From "Classy" to "Trashy" and Back Again

09.09.2026, 22:26 allure.com

I was 13 when my mom dropped me off for my first manicure at my local New Jersey nail salon, sandwiched between a pizza parlor and a Tiger Schulmann’s. My end-of-the-year eighth grade dance was on the horizon, you see, and I wanted to do something tangible to honor my budding womanhood (or, at least, my entrance into high school). The year was 2010, and the most grown-up nail style I could think of was a French manicure, the same one I saw painted on the hands of both glamorous celebrities and fictional characters, like Jennifer Lopez and Elle Woods. The opaque pink base with a bright white polish slashed across the tips was the epitome of femininity, class, and style—until it wasn’t. But more on that later.

The French manicure, in all of its Y2K glory, was introduced to the world pre-millennium. It was 1976 when Jeff Pink, the founder of Orly, is credited with creating it. He’s told the origin story many times before, and he repeated it to me over the phone this past August in honor of the French manicure’s 50th anniversary.

It goes something like this: In the 1970s, Pink owned a beauty supply store that serviced a number of Hollywood studios. He sold beauty products across categories like hair products, makeup, and of course, nail polish to television and movie sets. One day, a director complained that he was spending too much time changing each actress’ nail colors to match their outfits, and asked if Pink could come up with a style that would go with everything. “In the office, I had a white pencil that women used to use to clean underneath the nail, so that gave me the idea to come up with a white nail polish [tip],” Pink says. “At the time, I couldn't get white nail polish because it didn't exist. I had to fight with [a] company to make me one gallon of white polish, and finally they did.”

Jeff Pink, founder of Orly and creator of the French manicure.

Pink’s neutral manicure was designed to look like an exaggerated version of the natural nail. Luckily, the director was pleased. “He got so excited and he told me, Jeff, one day you should win an Oscar because you saved the industry so much money,” he says. “I'm still waiting for that.”

In 1976, after his on-screen invention, Pink’s company immediately started producing the style as a kit called the “Natural Nail Look,” et voilà, the French manicure. Although, it would be a few years until it was called the French manicure, and until the look really caught on with the common nail lover.

The turning point came in 1978, when Pink had the opportunity to demonstrate how to achieve his “Natural Nail Look” at Paris Fashion Week, and was suddenly struck with inspiration in the City of Love. “On the way back from Paris to L.A., I said to myself, Jeff, you know what? Natural Nail Look is really kind of cheesy. Maybe you should come up with some other name,” he says. “And then the idea came to me. I just came from Paris. Let's call it French manicure.” And then the French manicure was born.

Orly's “original” French manicure kit.

“[Orly] was really pushing the versatility component, which was important to women of the 1970s,” says Suzanne E. Shapiro, nail historian and author of Nails: The Story of the Modern Manicure. “It was a look that you could wear from the office to your social life that matched any number of changes of clothing would've been hugely appealing at that era.” The style also gained resonance at the time because “it had that look of Hollywood glamour and the almost aggressive femininity was really appealing,” adds Shapiro. She likens the style to dental veneers for the hands—an artificial, exaggerated version of flawlessness that was trendy at the time.

While Pink may have not gotten an Oscar, he did create one of the most enduring nail styles of all time, so much so that it’s transcended language: Enter any nail salon in the world and you’ll be able to sit down and walk away with the style, communication barrier be damned. (That wasn’t always the case—the manicure style was initially dubbed as an “American thing,” in Europe, but Allure reported in the November 1995 issue that the trend had crossed the pond and become popular among women in France. C’est la vie!) Pink tried to trademark the phrase “French manicure” in 1980, but was blocked—apparently, it was too “well known” for him to be granted ownership of it. Instead, he opted to trademark the phrase “Original French Manicure,” which is still what Orly uses to this day.

An “Original French Manicure” Orly advertisement.

What led to the French manicure gaining a permanent spot in the beauty lexicon? Pink believes it was after being seen on the hands of Hollywood starlets and celebrities. He specifically mentions Cher and Barbra Streisand, both of whom allegedly drew attention to their manicures on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson on two separate occasions. Nail artist Jin Soon Choi, also recalls Streisand and her affinity for the style. She says she remembers it being “glamorous.”

Throughout the 1990s, the white-tipped style soon became synonymous with the nail salon. “My first nail art I did was a French manicure—a classic French manicure—when I was working at a salon in the beginning of the 1990s in New York City,” says Choi. “I thought that was the only nail art that existed. People did either a sheer color, red color, or a French manicure.”

Tom Bachik, a nail artist who’s crafted French manis on celebrities from Jennifer Lopez to Selena Gomez, had a similar experience. “The Nineties was when I started doing nails, so I saw [the French manicure’s] popularity firsthand,” he says. “The bright white tip paired with a pink base was everywhere. It appealed to so many different people because it felt polished and glamorous while still functioning as a neutral.” French tips would go on to be seen on the hands of Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green in Friends and Elizabeth James in The Parent Trap. Even Princess Diana regularly wore a French mani, both for royal appearances and more casual outings.

Manicurists started experimenting with the style and more intricate nail art when acrylics started to become more popular. “I remember the transition really happening in the 1990s,” Choi says. Women of color in particular were at the forefront of emerging nail trends and used the French manicure as a jumping off point for artistic expression. In the mid-1990s, Bernadette Thompson, celebrity nail artist and founder of Bernadette Thompson nail line, designed a look for rapper Lil’ Kim based on a French design that incorporated a real $100 bill. “She didn't have any opinion on what she wanted to do, but I gave her a French manicure with money on the tips of her nails,” Thompson says. “Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige, there was a time when they wanted French manicures. But I told them, "Listen, you ladies are hip-hop artists and you called me. I'm not doing your typical French manicures.” Thompson’s money manicure made history, too—a reproduction is now on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Cher Horowitz sporting a French manicure in the 1995 movie Clueless.

Acrylics didn’t just allow for decorative nail art designs. They also led to a new version of the classic pink base and white tips. “French manicures had originally been about enhancing the natural nail, but as acrylic nails became more popular, the white tip started becoming wider, brighter, and more of a statement,” remembers Choi. By the late '90s, it was seen on more vivacious characters, like Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s mom in American Pie and Elle Woods, Cher Horowitz, and Carmela Soprano. And as we entered Y2K, the look trickled down through salons and ended up on the hands of everyday women—the very same ones who frequented my salons across the country, including my local New Jersey parlor.

As the French manicure’s popularity grew into the late 2000s and early 2010s, something shifted. The ubiquitous style was no longer très chic, but très gauche. “At that point, the French manicure had become closely associated with one specific look, which was a stark white tip with a bright pink base,” Bachik says. “It had become overexposed. Everyone was wearing it. At the same time, beauty trends were shifting toward cleaner, more minimal nails on one end of the spectrum and more expressive nail art on the other.”

Maybe it was the manicure’s permanent placement on mob wife Carmela Soprano’s fingernails, or maybe it was the constant appearance on many a Playboy Bunny's hands (Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra’s lacquered fingertips come to mind) or its frequent appearance at prom nights across the country. Choi specifically remembers that the cast of The Real Housewives of Orange County—Bravo’s first iteration of its Housewives franchise that premiered in 2006—mostly wore long acrylic nails and “a very extreme square shape” with thick white smile lines across the tips. By the 2000s, that exaggerated version became much more common,” she says. “The same basic French manicure had become a completely different look.”

This, she says, is what really made the style appear “tacky” in some people’s opinion. “[With acrylics] the finish is not as smooth, it's way too thick,” she says. “[People] tried to copy all celebrities that did thick lines." The turn away from deep French manicures also had classist and anti-Black undertones—long acrylic nails and intricate designs had a stigma of being unprofessional when worn on women of color.

Like many era-defining fashion and beauty trends, some age groups didn’t let it go—which also may be the reason why younger generations were quick to dismiss the style as dated and cheap. “There's always a major faction that clings to the style of their youth, and so it starts looking dated,” Shapiro says. “If women of a certain generation are still wearing long, squared-off French manicures, that's probably not going to excite the younger generation and they're going to push back against that.”

At the time, Allure famously