Snowflake Nail Art Tutorial

Hello everyone! I’ve gotten some requests for some snowflake nail art.

First up, let me show you a nice blue franken which goes nicely with a snowy nail art theme.

Oops, I forgot to show you the base color without the snowflakes on it! Must be too many paint fumes in here.  The color on the ring finger is OPI* Dating A Royal, which is a nice deep periwinkle jelly, but it gives the dreaded visible nail line (VNL) even after 3 coats.

So I mixed in some MAC Reflects Teal Glitter.

It yielded a nice blue with a teal shimmer that did not have the VNL problems of the original. Shown is two coats.

This design is really easy to do, all you need is some black, orange and white polish or acrylic paint, a fine tip brush (el cheapo ones are OK!) and a dotting tool. I did some dots on the index finger, then two easy snowflakes, then a cute little snowman. The snowman is just made of 3 circles, some black dots for the buttons, smile and eyes. The nose is just an orange dot. I made the hat and arms with black polish and just used my dotting tool to lay out the shape I wanted.

The snowflake is really pretty easy to do, I’ve laid it out here. Click for a bigger version.

I used acrylic paint on this, but stark white nail polish works just as well. Just use a cheap brush and clean it afterwards with a brush cleaner, or get a nail polish with a fine brush designed for nail art. I have also been working with Orly’s Instant Artist nail art polish , which is pretty good so far.

And if you really want to  get crazy with it, make some sweater nails:

The second nail from the left is a MOOSE, not a reindeer.  Moose never gets any love on those Nordic sweaters, so I thought it was time he got his due. He’s tired of playing second fiddle to the reindeer.

This Nordic design has been floating around in Japan, so I thought I’d give it a try. These took quite a while to make- I think I’d wear one or two sweater nails and the rest a solid color just to cut down on the painting time! But it’s a fun wintry look.

And, as an animal lover, I have to put out the  usual disclaimer for those of you who may just be joining us:

*OPI was cruelty-free when they were an independent company but they were acquired by Coty LLC last year. They do maintain that the OPI brand remains cruelty-free, but their parent company, Coty, is not cruelty-free and does conduct animal testing.  I’m avoiding Coty products even if this particular brand in their portfolio is cruelty free., especially since there are so many vegan AND truly cruelty-free options available. This product is from the old OPI.