Nail Salons Are Booked Solid This Summer as Cherry Red Jelly and Glazed Tangerine Take Over

Nail technicians across the country are describing this July as one of the busiest pedicure seasons in recent memory, with salon chairs barely cooling between clients and appointment books filling up days in advance. The season's breakout shades lean sheer and warm: cherry red jelly, a translucent red that lets light pass through the polish for a glassy, sun-through-fruit effect, has become one of the most requested colors of the summer.

Alongside cherry red jelly, glazed tangerine, a glossy orange warmer than red and punchier than coral, has been showing up across salon color walls, while the classic French pedicure has been reworked with softer, less uniform tip lines that read as more modern than the crisp white-tip version that dominated for years.

Salon owners say the volume has been steady rather than spiking around a single holiday weekend, with midweek appointments filling up nearly as fast as Friday and Saturday slots, a shift several attribute to more clients treating regular manicure and pedicure visits as a routine rather than an occasional treat.

With polish bars getting restocked mid-week to keep up with demand for the season's most-requested shades, several salons say they've had to special-order additional inventory of the warmer red and orange tones that have dominated requests since early summer.