NAIL ART: Rich Winter Graphic Abstract Skittle Mani

by - January 16, 2023


Two years ago I did one of my all time favorite nail designs, inspired by the incredibly beautiful coats that were on display at Joe Biden's Inauguration. I mean, honestly, every skittle mani I've done since that one has been measured against it even though it was, by far, one of the simplest nail art designs I've ever posted here on the blog. I definitely had that one in mind when I was putting together this mani, keeping in mind the richly pigmented shades that I used and the contrast of the black graphic design. This mani is definitely its own thing, but the inspiration definitely did come from that time we were all in love with the coats.

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I think it can be hard to separate the idea of a winter color palette from the holidays, but when I think of winter in the post holidays sense I definitely tend to think of rich, cool toned colors, which I think make up most of the palette for this design. I actually pulled out Heroine NYC's Lovesick while I was looking for polishes in my collection that might work for this year's Pantone Color Of The Year and that was what reminded me to grab for some more polishes from this brand for this mani. Because I only have four polishes from this brand in my collection (sadly they stopped shipping to Canada before I could get more) I ended up also grabbing a gorgeous teal créme from Starrily to round out the design.

To start, I applied one coat of each polish to my nails and let those dry down. Seriously, all of these polishes are so pigmented that all it took was one coat and I was good to go. 


The stamping for this mani was actually inspired by this mani by @paintedbypinky that I found when I searched this plate on Instagram. It's such an easy, straightforward way to use this plate, but I think it ends up being impactful in its simplicity. I used the same images that she used for the white sort of spider gel image and the single line of dots in black, but then I decided I wanted to add a little bit mroe interest at the tip to sort of balance out this design on my longer nails, so I also added this small dotted image at the corner of each tip of the nail also in black.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then followed with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!


All Products Used
Starrily - Empress 
Heroine NYC - Lovesick
Heroine NYC - Poison Ivy
Heroine NYC - London Fog 
Heroine NYC - In The Deep
Whats Up Nails - Neither Noir
Whats Up Nails - Blanc My Mind
Apipila Smudge Free Top Coat
Sweet & Sour Lacquer Gloss Sauce Top Coat
KADS Fashion 096 Stamping Plate
Pueen Chunky Soft Transparent Stamper
Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard


Honestly, I just love these types of richly pigmented, super saturated colors for this time of year and for that reason I really love how this mani turned out. I'm definitely leaning in to playing around with more abstract designs at the moment as well, so keep an eye out for more of this type of design here on the blog in coming weeks!

Be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK for more #CBBxManiMonday nails this week. We don't have a theme this month, so we're all just going a little mad with power!

Thanks for reading!

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