A french tip is a contrasting band of colour along the nail's free edge, traditionally white over a natural-pink base. Its real identity is structural: a line dividing the nail into base and tip. Move that line, recolour it, thin it to a hair or sink it halfway down the nail, and you get entirely different manicures — micro french, colour-swap french, deep-curve french, the double and reverse variants — all from one piece of grammar.
The line's placement (the “smile line”) follows the natural curve where nail separates from fingertip, and drawing it cleanly freehand is one of the classic tests of a tech's brushwork. In Nailly's studio, french tips are a first-class layer with custom tip colours — a gold micro french is as easy to design as a classic white one.