With a minimalist beauty aesthetic on the cards this season, we’re starting to rethink how we paint our nails. For, if the spring/summer 2014 shows taught us one thing about our fingertips, it’s that less is most definitely more. And that comes in the shape of a new slew of diaphanous, sheer formulas which appear draped across the nail like a delicate sheath of silk.

These are the lacquers that incur a subtle wash of colour, yet simultaneously trick the eye into thinking there might be nothing on the nail at all. Think of them like watercolours, but with a consistency more akin to a pre-set jelly. Of course, sheer in itself is a wildly subjective thing in the nail world; some brands drop down the opacity by a couple of jots, while others go as translucent in formula as a radiance skin serum. How sheer you go, is entirely your call. 

Want a healthy looking finish? Go for one layer of Bobbi Brown’s Pink Cloud. After a restrained flush of rouge? Try a few coats of Rococo’s Once Bitten Gloss. Either way, your nails will look as elegant and ladylike as you imagined they would when you were 12.

Click through the gallery for some of our favourite shades for spring…