Ro Wilson used to spend up to $150 on fresh gel extensions with intricate nail art every month.
“Christmas nails, Halloween nails, spring nails,” she said. “For the last couple of years, I was very loyal … the nail that I got always matched the theme of the month.“
But this January, the New York-based marketing professional decided to stop and give her weakened nail beds a break ― and she noticed the reprieve her wallet got as well. She now considers her Gel X habit an “unnecessary spend.”
“Right now, it’s more important for me to have a one-bedroom apartment and have less money to spend on beauty than it would be for me to have two, three roommates,” Wilson said about her current priorities.
She’s dubbed her current bare short nails a “recession indicator,” a play on the “recession nail” trend, or “princess nails” as some more positively call it, that has taken off on TikTok in recent days. According to these TikTokers, short, understated nails are in, and more expensive long coffin nails and gel extensions are out this year. As one TikToker with plain, manicured nails put it, these are “low-maintenance nails for the recession.”
But can the state of how you do your nails actually be a sign of where the economy is going?
Washington State University economist Christopher Clarke said short, simple nails could possibly be a recession indicator, but beauty trends are a “noisy” signal of an economic downturn because “things go in and out of style, and that has nothing to do with the economy, it just has to do with the seasonality of human preferences,” he said.
For Clarke, the key recession indicators are a rise in unemployment claims, the overall unemployment rate, and declining investments. But he understands why we want to make TikTok videos with our own interpretation of recession indicators, because humans crave a narrative to explain their anxieties about the future.
“When we feel anxiety about all these changes in the economy … we need a story to help us frame it, to help us understand what we’re going through,” he said.
What Nail Artists Think ‘Recession Nails’ Look Like
Nail artists themselves are more skeptical, however, about whether short, simple nails are a recession indicator.
Long nails “won’t be going anywhere anytime soon,” said Christa Cole, a Pasadena, California-based nail technician. “My clients love the way they can be creative and express their style with their nails.“
Nail artists said the length of the nail doesn’t indicate tightening budgets, but how often you come to the salon does. Los Angeles-based nail artist Christina Tran has noticed a trend over the past year, where clients are opting for simpler nail art and stretching out the time between appointments to save money.
When clients ask for “basic and boring,” understated short nails, “I’m not going to chew her out about it. I’ll be like, ‘Oh, maybe it’s a financial thing, or they have to get out of here in a hurry or something.’ But it’s like, girl, don’t you see what I could do?” Tran said about the simple, short nail look.
In Tran’s view, the ultimate recession nails are when you no longer have the budget to get your nails done at all.
Similarly, Los Angeles-based nail artist Sigourney Nuñez said recession nails are not dependent on length ― they are the nails you do yourself to save money. She believes we’ll soon see parallels between what was popular during the 2008 recession and what’s trending now. “Back then, DIY nail art really took off and drugstore polish was super affordable, so people got creative at home,” she said.
As one TikToker recently put it, “Recession core is just gluing the same $5 press-on nails back every time they pop off for two months.”
When times are tough, Clarke said people will cut out unnecessary luxury items, citing how budget retailer Walmart’s stock price rose during the 2008 recession while Target’s fell.
However, what makes nail trends difficult to track as recession indicators is that what some consider a luxury, others view as a necessity.
Even though gel manicures with nail art can cost more than $100, some customers will never give them up, no matter the cost. “There will always be those loyal clients who would rather skip eating out than miss their nail appointment,” Nuñez said.
Tran said she has clients who will tell her “how they’re struggling, but they’ll still come and get their nails done, because it’s been so ingrained in their personality.”
As for Wilson, she has given up her monthly gel extension habit. But she still plans to reserve elaborate nail art for special occasions in the future.
“I like the idea of growing my own nail out,” Wilson said, “and just doing designs and getting gel on that, versus paying $120-plus for fake nails that were going to break off anyway.”