‘Cloudy French Nails’ Will Replace A Major Manicure Trend in 2026
Milk nails in all their forms have dominated our feeds in 2025, whether you’ve opted for sheer milk bath nails or the BB cream iteration. Today, “murky French nails,” sometimes called “hazy French nails,” are in the spotlight as the new successor to the nude nail crown — and they’ve already received the cool-girl seal of approval.
Celebrity manicurist Betina Goldstein debuted Zoë Kravitz’s look at the Golden Globes last week, describing her enviously shiny manicure as “soft natural nails with a touch of murky French” in an Instagram post.
Now I spot this look everywhere, especially from my friends and fellow beauty editors who give their nails a break from gels but still want “a little something” to make their tips look neat and polished.
So, what exactly are “cloudy French nails”?
As the name suggests, this is a twist on the traditional French manicure and is inspired by the Pantone color of the year: Cloud Dancer. But you can see in the close-up of Kravitz’s manicure that the cloudy French manicure gave this iconic neutral nail a sheer, hazy quality, rather than a pastel pink base paired with a crisp white tip.
Zoe Kravitz at the 83rd Annual Golden Globes held at the Beverly Hilton on January 11, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/2026GG/Penske Media via Getty Images)Jesse Grant/2026GG/Getty Images
Think of it as a soft French: a nearly bare nail and an off-white, nearly bare tip, the distinct color of clouds on a foggy January day. Cloudy French nails look like the 2026 version of the vanilla French manicure that Hailey Bieber popularized three years ago, and like milk nails, the effect is just as stylish with an elongated nail bed.
The fact that the color on the tip is, well, disabledmay seem like a small detail, but it’s actually the key to making the cloudy French manicure look like the cool, unexpected, and slightly rebellious cousin of the traditional French manicure.
How to get the “cloudy French” nail look
In her post, Goldstein explained exactly how she created her cloudy French nail look, using all of The Gel Bottle’s products. After applying the two-in-one base coat, she added a “thin layer” of Chiffon BIAB and an equally thin layer of Milky BIAB on “the tips of the nails to correct the color.” A single coat of Extreme Shine Top Coat finished the look.
