Inside Gen Alpha’s Press-On Nail Obsession

Clare McCarthy, a college student and babysitter in Bay Village, Ohio, was at Target shopping with one of her nine year-old charges, who asked to buy something special for her first day of fifth grade: A set of Olive & June press-on nails, bubblegum pink and printed with magenta hearts.

Press-ons, the colloquial term for temporary acrylic nails glued on at home (as opposed to applied at a salon), were invented in the 1950s and in mass production by the 1980s, when they became accessories for women who wanted to project femme power. More recently, they’ve become coveted among younger and younger cohorts, not just college or high school students but those just entering grade school.

(“All my friends wear them,” the nine year-old told her babysitter.)

This obsession, growing among the ungrown, helped inspire Olive & June’s latest collection: Pressies, launched in November, are intended for teens and tweens who are “passionate about nails,” according to promotional copy. It’s not alone: drugstore mainstay Sally Hansen and Millennial-chic salon Chillhouse launched youth-focussed press-ons, and new challenger Glamnetic introduced Digi Beauty, its press-on line for Gen Alpha.

Olive & June debuted their press-on business in 2021. According to chief operating officer Sarah Leech Aucutt, the label is the number two brand at retail, yielding only to incumbent Kiss, who has been in the business since 1989.

The beauty entrepreneur Tony Tjan, who founded the nail salon chain Miniluxe, also believes that press-ons are the future — and that in 10 or 20 years, “wet” polish could go the way of the butter churn. “They will steal share from across categories of nail use, while also growing the market,” he explained. In 2026, the global nail market will be valued at $6.7 billion dollars, according to Euromonitor, with nail polish contributing $5 billion, followed by treatments and removers ($1.2 billion) and tools, including press-ons ($200 million).

“Nail products have experienced a turbulent few years,” explained Emilie Hood, a consultant at Euromonitor. Tools for at-home manicures boomed during pandemic lockdowns but cooled as salons reopened; now, press- or stick-on nails are seeing “strong growth” thanks to better technology. Miniluxe has long sold press-ons, but this year launched a couture experience where customers can design their own reusable set of nails with a professional artist in a salon and apply them at home in perpetuity.

New engineering may be inspiring the press-on boom, but it’s Gen Alpha who are driving demand. Searches for kids’ press-ons are up 17 percent this year on Google, TikTok and Instagram, according to analytics firm Spate.

Kids and Their Claws

According to beauty lore, the first contemporary press-ons were made by an enterprising dentist in Philadelphia in the 1950s, but entered drugstores in the 1980s, thanks to brands like Lee, Kiss and Revlon.

Their popularity today is largely due to social media, which offers a nonstop torrent of nail art inspiration. In the post-Vietnam War era, when getting your nails done was becoming popular as a service in the US thanks to an influx of Vietnamese immigrants, “you didn’t really have a a range of platforms to provide inspo,” said Tjan.

Originally a nail salon chain, Olive & June launched into wet polishes in 2019, but took time to engineer the perfect press-on. “When we dug into the category, what we found was only 50 percent of people could find their perfect fit,” explained Anne Riegle, Olive & June vice president of product development. Most press-ons were, and still are, sized between 0 and 12, but Olive & June launched their own in 2021 with 21 sizes. Its younger Pressies line come in additional 14 sizes, which is 40 percent more than other kid-focussed press-on brands, Riegle noted.

Brands like Miniluxe and Olive & June suggest that shoppers can amass a “wardrobe” of nails, designing them to be changeable: Pressies come with a wheel of translucent adhesive tabs that can stick to nails easily and be stacked for longer wear, Riegle explained. “We had parents who were like, ‘They can’t wear them to school.’”

Gen Alpha’s mounting love of beauty products has drawn criticism, even horror, from observers who wonder how young is too young to partake in vanity culture. But unlike caked-on foundation or exfoliating acids, fake nails are harmless — even playful, in a princess dress-up kind of way.

And none of the hand-wringing will stop Gen Alpha from trying to emulate the grown-ups in their lives. “She wanted those nails because I like to paint mine,” said babysitter McCarthy of her ward. She wouldn’t give lipstick to a child, but also won’t overthink the press-ons. “They’re just a fun way to be a little girly.”

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