IT'S TIME - Christmas/Holiday nails time!! Recently, I went to Bath & Body Works for the first time in absolute ages since shutdowns and my own anxiety had kept me out of the mall for so long. I did manage to get myself into the mall recently, though, and I popped in to check out what was new at B&BW - spoiler, pretty much everything was new since it had been so long since I'd been in there. I smelled a few different things and as soon as I got my nose on Fireside Flurries, which had just come in with the new holiday stuff, I was immediately sold. It's sweet and cozy with a little bit of that musky smokiness that I personally love so much. Mmmm. I've 100% been using this as a bedtime body spray and I love it. I also really, really love the packaging and immediately wanted to use it as the inspiration for some holiday nail art. 

Keep reading to see how I did it!

So the most important part of recreating this packaging on my nails was always going to be getting the gradient right with that sort of plum to soft mauve blend. Luckily for me, I actually had four shades in my collection - 3 from Color Club with an assist from one polish from OPI - that created the absolute bang on match of the purple shades on the body spray bottle. 

To do this gradient, I started by applying one coat of my lightest shade to all of my nails and letting that dry down completely. It's really, really important that you have a fully dry base if you're going to build a gradient onto it, because if it's still tacky you could actually end up lifting it with the makeup sponge rather than building on top of it. Next, after applying cuticle barrier to aid in cleanup, I went in with my gradient on said makeup sponge and dabbed it gently to get a nice blend. This gradient took three layers of stamping to get to the opacity and blend that I was looking for - every gradient is different depending on the polishes you're using the build it.

One of the prettiest things about this packaging is the sort of textured holo on top of the gradient and initially I wasn't really sure how I was going to replicate that. Ultimately, I decided that I was going to take a few liberties and instead of going with holo for the topper, I went with an iridescent rainbow flakie topper from Starrily called Unicorn that is... honestly a bit of a must have, in my opinion. I don't often say must have, but with this one... Must Have. It's incredibly versatile and adds so much dimension and interest in so many different scenarios. 

I knew that I wanted to add a few white snowflakes to the mani as well, to reference that part of the packaging design, but I also wanted to keep this simple so I picked a few different simple snowflakes from my Nicole Diary 120 Stamping Plate (also a winter must have for anyone who likes stamping, in my opinion) that I felt like maintained the same vibe as the packaging. I wanted to keep it simple and clean, but still bring in that wintery vibe, so I applied one or two snowflakes to each nail, keeping them at the corners sort of poking in.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed it in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a layer of matte top coat to take down the shine and voila!

I love, love, love how this turned out. I feel like it really is a beautiful holiday look all on its own, but it also really, really draws on that packaging inspiration. Also, if you're at all into scented body products, I highly recommend taking your nose down to Bath & Body Works and getting a sniff of this one because it's just absolutely dreamy and I feel like it's distinctly a limited holiday release. I, personally, popped in there on Black Friday and bought two tubes of the body cream to go with my body spray because I like it that much. 

Be sure to keep checking back here on the blog every day in December leading up until Christmas Eve for more holiday themed nail art designs. And be sure to head over to @pblnails to check out video tutorials for all of my nail art! I'm so, so excited to get into these holiday themed nails and I've got some great ones coming, so keep an eye out!

Thanks for reading!