New nail trend involves putting live ants inside acrylic tips

A bizarre beauty trend has been slammed on social media.

A Russian nail art chain took to Instagram to post a video of live ants being put inside clear, hollow acrylic nail tips.

Sunny Nails was branded 'cruel' and 'sick' despite stating that 'no animals were harmed during the making of this video'.

no animals were harmed during the making of this video' ??? ants in the nails - YAY OR NAY? What happened with ants ? Look the next video !!!!! They are breathing!!!!! Video by @edo_movs #nailsunnytutorial

A post shared by Nail Sunny (@nail_sunny) on Aug 24, 2018 at 9:37am PDT

The nail salon, which has 1.8 million followers, posted a second video showing the ants being released but people were still outraged.

One user posted:

"Absolutely disgusting, and furthermore an act that encourages and legitimises other cruel acts towards harmless animals, because it's "just for fun". You should be embarrassed. AND YES animals were harmed in this video, so that caption is a damn lie."

However, some people defended Sunny Nails.

One Instagramer said:

"It's an ant! Why are ppl so sensitive?? Tell me you haven't killed a mosquito, swatted a fly or stepped on an ant yourself? Get over it."