SynopsisObjectiveThe objectives of this study were to determine what sensory factors impact consumers' acceptability of nail polishes, to explore how these sensory factors impact consumers' acceptability of nail polishes, to investigate whether there are any consumer segments according to their overall acceptability on different nail polishes and to scrutinize how the consumer segments are related to the sensory factors.MethodsNinety‐eight females participated in a nail polish consumer study at Kansas State University. Eight commercial products belonging to four categories – regular (REG), gel (GEL), flake (FLK) and water‐based (WAT) – were evaluated. Each nail polish sample was evaluated twice by each participant in two different tasks – a task devoted to applying and evaluating the product and a task devoted to observing the appearance and evaluating the product. Pearson's correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), external preference mapping, cluster analysis and internal preference mapping were applied for data analysis.ResultsParticipants' scores of overall liking of the nail polishes were similar in the application task and in the observation task. In general, participants liked the REG and GEL product samples more than the FLK and WAT samples. Among all the sensory attributes, appearance attributes were the major factors that affected participants' overall liking. Aroma seemed to be a minor factor to participants' overall liking. Some sensory attributes, such as runny, shininess, opacity, spreadability, smoothness, coverage and wet appearance, were found to drive participants' overall acceptability positively, whereas others such as pinhole, fatty‐edges, blister, brushlines, pearl‐like, flake‐protrusion, glittery and initial‐drag impacted participants' overall acceptability negatively. Four clusters of participants were identified according to their overall liking scores from both the application task and the observation task.ConclusionsParticipants' acceptability, based on different sensory attributes, could help a nail polish manufacturer modify or improve their nail polish formulas. Nail polish manufacturers could use the consumer cluster information to improve their marketing strategies for specific categories of their products and to target their advertising on particular consumer groups.