Nail The Naked Manicure Trend With This Must-Have Polish For Healthy Nails

Nail health has never been more popular — and that’s exactly why so many celebs and beauty influencers are swapping out their long, colorful gels for naked manis and classic French tips (aka “old money nails”). Londontown’s new line of minimalistic nail strengtheners pretty much hits the nail on the head (no pun intended) when it comes to classic, natural-looking polishes. Their Nail Blushes come in two colors — a sheer red and a sheer purple — and they work to strengthen your natural nails while adding a subtle wash of glossy color. And, contrary to popular belief, keeping a strengthening polish on your nails is actually better for their health than letting them breathe.

“Nails derive oxygen and nutrients from the blood supply and not the air,” Dr. Dana Stern, M.D., a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in nail health, previously told Bustle. Not only do nails not need to “breathe” — they actually can’t. Instead, sealing in moisture with a good polish does a better job at keeping your nails healthy. A layer of polish helps keep your nails from drying out, especially when you’re doing the dishes or showering. (Some other best practices to prevent nail damage, according to experts: not leaving the same polish on for more than two or three weeks at a time, avoiding nail polish removers made with drying acetone, and regularly using a cuticle oil.)

Londontown’s Sheer Strength Nail Blush in ‘Poppy’ gives your nails a sheer wash of scarlet color that’s completely customizable — use one coat for a subtler, pinker look, and two to three coats for a more pigmented effect. But the product’s real secret is its multi-polymer technology that works to strengthen your nail’s keratin matrix immediately upon application and over time, too (with continued use, of course).

The polish’s clinically proven formula also includes a “florium complex,” the brand’s proprietary blend of rapeseed flower oil, cucumber extract, garlic extract, evening primrose oil, chamomile extract, and vitamin E, designed to further nourish nails and encourage healthier growth.

And participants in a consumer perception study agreed with the product’s claims — 90% of users agreed that the Nail Blush improved their nails’ overall condition, while 89% saw an increase in overall strength and 85% agreed that the product improved resistance to breakage, splitting, and peeling.

The second shade, ‘Concord,’ is excellent at canceling out yellow tones or just giving nails a sheer tint of violet color. The Nail Blush’s glossy finish is one of its other selling points, too. It remains glassy and brilliant even when it’s fully dried down, giving your nails a jelly-like look. The shiny finish means it’s great at camouflaging any imperfections on your nails, like scratches or flaking, so it really does live up to its name as a “two-in-one nail hardener and glow booster.”

The polish, like all of Londontown’s products, also boasts a 21-free formula. That means it’s free of 21 ingredients commonly linked to toxicity concerns, like formaldehyde, toluene, phthalates (including DBP), formaldehyde resin, camphor, xylene, ethyl tosylamide, TPHP, and bisphenol A. It’s vegan and cruelty free, too.