NAIL ART: Simple Swirling Snowflake Pastel Skittle Mani

by - December 26, 2022


Every year for this marathon of Christmas nails I do here on the blog, I like to do at least one or two designs in colors that one wouldn't necessarily think is traditionally related to any of the winter holidays. I didn't manage to sneak this one in before Christmas, but I think it works pretty well for the week between Christmas and New Year's. Last year's non-traditional skittle was in the neon realm, so this year I decided instead to go with pastels, which are obviously much more often used for spring and summer mani's and feel distinctly different from the traditional holiday colors. I also decided to keep it really, really simple design wise with this one because it just felt right.

Keep reading for more!


So as I said, I wanted to use pastels for this mani and I decided that sticking to cooler tones of pastels would have the winteriest feel (except for my thumb, which was sort of unavoidable but also not in the photos so it doesn't matter...) Of course I had to go to my Color Club drawer and pull out a handful of old favorites for this mani. I love Color Club pastels and they get a TON of use in my nail art, so that was a no brainer.

I decided not to apply them in rainbow order, which I assure you was very, very out of character for me, but I really didn't want this give that feeling of a rainbow when it was finished. Instead, I staggered the colors so that they were very specifically not in rainbow order and applied two coats of each. 


Once I had my bases applied, I decided that I wanted a little bit more interest to the base, so I went in with one coat of my absolute favorite flakie topper - Starrily's Unicorn, which is a rainbow of iridescent flakes that adds a lot of pretty dimension. I applied one coat of Unicorn to all of my nails and let that dry before moving onto the stamping.

Going into this mani I knew that I really, really wanted to keep the stamping simple and cohesive without really going all the way to a minimalist sort of place. I chose two stamping images from the Whats Up Nails A022 Stamping Plate - a large classic snowflake and the tail end of this sort of swirly image - and used those on each of my nails. I played around with the placement, alternating and shifting so that each nail did end up being unique.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed in my design with a nail art top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat to keep this one shiny. And voila!


All Products Used
Color Club - I'm Outta Here
Color Club - Factory Girl
Color Club - Totally Worth It
Color Club - Diggin' The Dancing Queen
Color Club - First Class Sass
Starrily - Unicorn**
Whats Up Nails - Blanc My Mind*
Apipila Smudge Free Top Coat
Sweet & Sour Lacquer Gloss Sauce Top Coat
Whats Up Nails A022 Back To Flurality Stamping Plate
Pueen Chunky Soft Transparent Stamper
Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard*

* = PR Sample // ** = Affiliate NailStuff.ca code TRYSH  


I have to say, I really do love bringing in non-traditional color stories for these holiday themed mani's and I'm wishing a little bit that I had done some more of that with this year's Christmas mani's. Since this is the second to last one for the year, it'll have to wait for next year, but I'm really happy to have gotten this one in!

If you're interested in seeing a tutorial for this design - or any of the other holiday designs I've put together, head over to @pblnails on Instagram and follow me there to keep up on all of my nail art designs! And be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK for more nail art for this week's #CBBxManiMonday!

Thanks for reading!


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