All winter long, you’ve tucked your toes into tennies and shoved your mitts into gloves. Your nails — and the luxe lacquers in your makeup bag — have been in hibernation mode. Spring: daffodils are popping up in droves. Blue birds are building their nests with pine needles. And spring peepers, tiny chorus frogs, are singing in every pond. That can only mean one thing: it’s time to shed those bulky coats for thinner ones. So, grab your Emery board, fashion your nails into an almond shape, and bring your weathered fingers back to life with these fashion-week, “it” nail colors that pop for the season.
1. Cake by the Ocean, Deborah Lippmann
This baby-pink creme will make you feel like candy on dry land. This fashion-forward polish is packed with fatty acids, biotin, and keratin, so it’ll give you shiny, rock-hard nails — without a curing lamp that emits UV rays four times stronger than the sun’s.
2. Sea of Love, Deborah Lippmann
Soft, inviting: nothing says spring break on the ocean like this misty-blue shade. Best suited for cool-toned skin, this creme-based formula can be applied in a single coat — thank in part to OPI’s Prowide Brush. Bonus: Sea of Love will roll into your summer wardrobe.
3. Maybe, Dior
Rock the sweetest pastel of all — peach. Dior’s long-lasting, silicone-enriched formula will make you look like you’ve tiptoed through a field of tulips. Universally-flattering, peach polish also has year-round staying power.
4. Sudden, Dior
Bring your nails into a new season with Sudden: a rich, peony pink creme nail polish. Feminine, flirtatious, and romantic: it contains an extra-fine, silver shimmer that’ll make your nails sparkle like diamonds.
5. Gimme a Lido Kiss, OPI
Hello, spring fever. Add a little fire to your makeup bag with Gimme a Lido Kiss. The color flirts with pink and has specks of grown-up glitter. This bright, happy red also has seven day staying power and can be applied in two to three coats.
6. AmazON…AmazOFF Nail Polish, OPI
Let onlookers hear you roar in this forest green polish. With teal undertones and a slight pearl shimmer, this creme-jelly hybrid can be applied in a single coat. Think of it as a Brazilian Carnival for your nail beds. And, luckily, you won’t have to tuck it away until well after Labor Day.
7. Squeaker of the House, OPI
It’s another Washington scandal. Kerry Washington’s nail polish, Squeaker of the House, crosses party lines. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, this medium chocolate creme will make you feel like you’re donning an office powersuit — in nail form.
8. Shade Shifter, KBShimmer
KBShimmer’s Shade Shifter is a beauty chameleon. Depending on the light, it morphs from cranberry to gold to deep sea blue. Apply at least two coats of this formula over a dark nail polish for your own two week, minature light show.
9. Raspberry Jam, Deborah Lippmann
Raspberry jam isn’t just for your toast, your yogurt, or your spoon. It’s for your talons too. Swipe on a layer of Deborah Lippman’s plum-colored nail polish, and let yourself — and your closet — blossom into spring.