THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

When I sat down to do today's mani, I was in the mood for high contrast. I wanted a rich, deep, blackened base polish paired with crisp, bright white stamping in a really unfussy design. Now, admittedly, I suspect there are probably a lot of people whose definition of unfussy differs from mine, since I've become a bit of a maximalist when it comes to nail art, but for me this is definitely an unfussy design. 

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When it came to the base for this design, there was really only polish in my collection that it could be because I wanted that really blackened look, but with a Christmasy color and some twinkly interest. Looking Mighty Pine from Painted Polish is by far the deepest green polish in my collection and it's packed with reflective glitter as well as some fine hex glitters. Unfortunately, this was a PPU shade so it isn't available anymore, but it's definitely one that I think anyone who owns it should consider pulling out for the holiday season.

I started by applying two coats of Looking Might Pine and because those reflective glitters tend to dry with some texture, I also added a layer of glossy top coat before moving on to my stamping.

For the stamping, as I said, I wanted to keep it pretty simple. I actually did a mani using this stamping image last year, but I didn't want a straight up repeat on the design so I changed it up a litte. On my pinkie and middle fingers as well as my thumb, I just applied the full cover image as is. This is a decently wide image, so I was able to shift it side to side somewhat and get a slightly different look on each nail even though I used the same image. For my ring finger, I decided to isolate the largest tree in the image and apply that on its own towards the tip of my nail. I decided to also add a little cluster of dots as well as a few random dots just to add a bit of visual interest to that nail as well. 

Once I was happy with the design, I sealed it in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

I really quite like how this mani came together. In person, the color definitely looks more obviously green than in photos, but it is still quite dark and maybe a little bit vampy - which I love! If you're interested in any of the Pueen products I used for this mani, they're all available from Amazon and definitely have my recommendation.