A couple of years ago, I put together this mani and it immediately became and has continued to be one of my favorite nail art designs that I've ever done and the design of it is actually one that I've used for a bunch of different occasions since then. Of course, since it's still my favorite I feel inclined to do some version of it every year - though I do try to be sure that I change it up at least a little. This year, I decided to go for a red tip to give a very distinctly Christmasiness to it and I'm pretty in love (and also a little bit devastated, but we'll get into that in a minute...)

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So as I said, I decided to go with a red tip this year and instead of going for a holo finish, which is what I've always done with this style of design. Instead, I went with this really pretty shimmery red from Kokie that has a sort of pinky base along with a shimmer that has a strong gold lean to it, which I think creates a really pretty, festive tip. For the base polish, I went for the same one I used the first time and every time since then for this design - and this is where the devastation comes in. OPI's Robots Are Forever is this stunning milky base packed with silver flakes that is just perfection, in my opinion (and possibly only my opinion...) It was a limited edition Ulta exclusive polish from a collection several years ago now and as hard as I've hunted I've never been able to find another bottle and mine is very quickly running out, so this is probably one of the last times you'll see it on the blog. RIP Robots Are Forever. 

Anyway, to start, I applied one coat of Robots Are Forever to all of my nails and let those dry down. 

When I do these gradient tip designs, I use a gradient technique where instead of creating a gradient with the tip color and the base color, instead I apply the tip color and then clear so that I maintain that sheer base but still get a nice blend from the tip color. For this gradient, I did three passes of sponging to get the opacity and blend that I was looking for and I'm sort of in love with how this formula performed using this technique.

Now, for the stamping, I keep it really, really simple. I used the Nicole Diary 120 stamping plate for this design and for the main stamping I used two different pairs of snowflakes, but alternated the color and direction of them in order to give each nail a slightly different look. I also decided to add one smaller snowflake to each nail towards the base in alternating colors just to add a little something in that blank space.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard*

I continue to really, really love this design and I feel like I could easily do some version of it every year and it'll always end up being different. That said, I suspect this will be the last year with OPI's Robots Are Forever as my base unless I can get my hands on another bottle and I do think that's a really special polish and does make this one something special. I'll figure it out though!