Festive Nail Looks for Winter

Party Hearty
Let’s kick things off with our all-time favorite Christmas nail polish: Party Hearty by China Glaze. It’s a clear base with tiny gold glitter, medium-sized green glitter, and large red glitter. You can see it here over a few different Christmas-y colors, but you can also try it over a flat nude polish or layer it on by itself for a holiday shimmer.

Holiday Joy
We’re big fans of nail polish collections in general, and winter is THE season for collections. China Glaze’s Holiday Joy collection is filled with cheery reds, festive green and gold, wintery blue and silver, and fun glitters perfect for New Year’s.

Hanukkah Floam
Hanukkah Floam from Ninja Polish’s Winter 2012 collection has a clear base with a ton of glitter in varying shades of bright blue. Small holographic pieces will catch the candlelight and add an insane amount of sparkle.

French Winter
This look takes three of this year’s trends – French tips, ombre, and metallics – and combines them for a stunning wintertime manicure. Start with a clear base coat, then add a thin gold French tip. Once it’s dry, add another small line of gold on top and while it’s still wet, sponge or drag a silver and gold glitter from the tip of your nail to the middle.

French Christmas
We’ve seen a lot of red and green nail looks, but this is this first Christmas matte French manicure we’ve come across. We love it because it’s fun yet sophisticated; the matte finish tones down shimmery polishes that might be too flashy for your tastes, and the subtle gloss French tip so chic!

French Hanukkah
Colored French tips on bare nails have been a big hit this year. A swipe of a bright glittery blue makes for a quick, easy, and fun Hanukkah look. You can add a tiny star of David by dipping a toothpick in silver polish or by using a silver nail pen.

Wintery Mix
Here’s a super cute style if you celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. Santa hats in Hanukkah blue and silver give you a fun way to style your nails for both of your December holidays.

Sweater Weather
Thick knit sweaters are wonderful in the middle of winter (or fall, winter, and some of spring if you live in Canada). Why not deck your nails with classic sweater print images? If you’re really coordinated, you can try free-handing this look using white polish and a toothpick or small paintbrush. For the rest of us who are all thumbs, we’ll stick with stencils.

Midnight Snow Stamp
Speaking of stencils, you can create really elaborate looks like this one by using stencil and stamp tools. A white stamp on a dark background works really well. You can add garlands of glitter if you like, but it looks just as fabulous without.

Christmas Lights
Okay, we know this look isn’t for everyone, but it’s just so fabulous we had to include it. You already know we love French tips and glittery polish, but the tiny lights? That’s just too amazing.

Green & Gold
We love that dark green is one of the hottest colors of the season. This deep evergreen is “Going Incognito” by Essie, and that stunning large gold glitter polish is “Gold” by Milani. You’ll have to use quite a few coats of the glitter, but just look how beautiful it turns out!

Red & Multi-glitter
In contrast to the colored-nails-with-glitter-accent-nail look, we have the glitter-nails-with-colored-accent-nail look. (We’re still working on a shorter name.) This very well might be our absolute favorite look for the holidays, and with all the gorgeous red and multi-glitter polishes that just came out, we’ll have plenty of choices to play with.