I don’t know about you but each year I agonise over what to get for The Festive Mani as though as I were deliberating the name of a newborn child. What are your favorites, glittery Burgundy, foil tips, and sparkling snowflakes? Yep, it’s serious stuff.
It’s important to be serious because great holiday manicures can bring joy as well as comfort. Which is all the more reason why, although Christmas parties might be cancelled and salon appointments postponed, we shouldn’t forgo the festive nails this year.
These joy-giving home designs will make this year’s holiday season even more memorable. All you’ll need is a few good polishes, an orange stick (or ‘nail dotter’ as they call them in the trade) and a steady hand…
Starry, starry night
5/5 Difficulty Level
Jennifer Wood, nail artist @j3nnailedit
1. Use a base coat of electric blue nail varnish. You should apply two coats.
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2. Make small white dots where you’d like your stars to be. Use a tiny brush with a steady hand and drag four sides to create twinkles.
3. A clear coat is highly recommended.
The Mistletoe
Difficulty level: 2/5
Townhouse salon @mytownhouseuk
1. Use a basecoat on your nails.
2. You can apply one to two coats with your opaque neutral nail polish. We’re loving OPI Bubble Bath!
3. After drying, apply your glitter nail varnish diagonally to the nails with a gentle curve. Once you have the line you’d like, fill in the rest of the tip with the glitter polish.
The top tipNail tape (also available on Amazon) can be used to help you create straight lines if you are having trouble drawing. After your base is dry, apply the tape to the nails. Put your glitter polish on. When dry, carefully peel back the tape guide.
4. You can clean nail polish from your skin with an orangewood stick, or a cotton pad coated in nail polish remover.
5. Once all nail polish is dried, you can apply a topcoat
Sparkling tips
Difficulty level: 2/5
Georgia Rae, OPI ambassador @raelondonnails
1. By gently pulling back the dead skin and cutting it off, you can prepare cuticles. File the nails to your desired shape.
2. Use nail polish remover to remove oils. This will reduce nail polish adhesion.
3. Apply a base coat followed by a sheer nude polish, you can apply 1 or 2 coats depending on how transparent you’d like it to be, you’re going to be covering the tips of the nail with glitter so don’t need to worry too much about seeing any imperfections on your natural nail!
4. Wait for this base shade to dryAnd then decant a glitter polish onto a palette, the glitter polish I’ve used here is called ‘Confetti Ready’ ‘You Had Me at Confetti’OPI
5. If you’re going for a minimal look, use a nail art brush or dotting tool to isolate which pieces of glitter you’d like to apply and begin individually placing the bigger pieces closer to the free edge and gradually add smaller pieces as you bring it down the nail, keeping it as random as possible.
6. If you’d like the look to be glitzier you could use the brush directly from the bottle and place some polish at the tip of the nail and use a separate nail art brush to drag the glitter down toward the cuticle.
7. Top coat
I’m going to a candy store.
Level of difficulty is 3/5
Tina Michael is the founder and CEO @shoreditchnails
1. Use a base coat to protect your nails. The Top + BaseThe 3-in-1 base and top coat that hardens.
2. Apply one layer of pale pink – our polish The Angel is a gorgeous translucent and slightly iridescent pink.
3. Create the base of your asymmetric French by dipping your striper brush in to some white nail polish (we used Shoreditch Nails’ Tottenham) and start drawing a line from the tip of your nail down the side to create a curve.
4, Once you’re happy with the shape of your asymmetric French fill it in with white nail polish and start to draw the candy stripes using red nail polish, we used our favourite pillar box red The Bow for this.
5. Add another layer of The Top + Basis and some of to complete the design Nail Oil to keep your cuticles hydrated and help prolong your manicure.
Figgy pudding
Rating: 4/5
Carmen Davis, nail artist @purpleonmyfingers
1. File and shape your nails
2. You should push your cuticles back
3. After applying a primer, add 2 layers of brown.
4. Add the glitter to the nails for the best dessert. Design
5. Use a stick or dot to apply white paint to your pudding nails
6. To gently move the dots towards your cuticle, use the dotting tool. You can join together
7. Use the Berry dotting tool to create Berry dots at the edges of your cuticle. Continue the procedure for the green leaves.
8. Apply a topcoat to finish
Swirling snowflakes
Difficulty level: 5/5
Sadie Jordan, nail expert at Peacci
1. Allow to dry before applying the Peacci 2-in-1 Base coat. Then using a detail brush create an abstract curved line in white polish – Peacci’s Daisy is perfect.
2. White will help you create your abstract shapes
3. You can use the detail brush for a white star painted with white polish. Begin by drawing three straight lines
4. Add some diagonal lines to make a snowflake.
5. You can make snowflakes appear like snow by placing small dots around them.
6. After the design has dried, apply Peacci’s Gel’ous Topcoat to finish off your design