Is nail art appropriate for my "business casual" workplace?

I (23F) have been working at my current job for almost a year. It's a technical job, and my time consists of maybe 60% working at my desk, 20% in meetings, and 20% in the lab (depending on the day and project, of course). The dress code is officially "business casual," but in the time I've been working here, I've noticed plenty of people (including my manager) wear jeans on a daily basis, and some employees (mainly men who have been with the company for a while) often come to work in very casual jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. More professional attire is encouraged when someone important is visiting the office, or when we have meetings with our customers, of course. Even so, I've still been wearing what I'd consider "business casual" attire whenever I'm in the office (usually dress pants and a nice shirt).

I got into painting my nails when I was in college -- I'd often switch between fun designs, and french tips. When I started my job, I stuck with bare nails or french tips, because I was concerned fun colors and designs wouldn't be considered workplace appropriate. I tested the waters a bit a couple weeks ago though, and came to work with a more fun design (red nails with pink dots on the left hand, and blue nails with green dots on the right). No one even commented on my nails the entire week, so it didn't seem to be a big deal.

I took off the nail polish when it started to chip, and left them bare this past week. Just today, I was lying around at home, and decided to paint my nails purple with white daisies. They turned out well, but I then got worried they might be too childish, and removed it maybe an hour later. I considered doing a more professional-looking design (maybe like red with darker red stripes?), but then wondered if maybe any nail art is technically "unprofessional," and I should just stick to french tips.

So, I guess my question would be this: What kind of nail polish/designs are appropriate for a "business casual" workplace? Even if a large portion of the office only loosely follows the "business casual" guidelines, I'd still like to look professional.

TL;DR: Is nail art appropriate for a "business casual" workplace? If so, should I stick to certain designs and colors?

Edit: I've read online that it helps to see what other people do with their nails, but my workplace is very predominantly male, so there are really only a couple other women I interact with on a regular basis. Both of them are about my age, and have been with the company about as long as I have, so I don't really have a very large range of data to work with.

Submitted April 29, 2019 at 07:42AM by 4_anonymity http://bit.ly/2IYlP0W