When the festive season approaches, as beauty enthusiasts, we have a few things on our minds: what to buy our friends and family [1], what festive beauty launches we might invest [2] in for ourselves, and how we're going to settle on just one nail art design [3].
Luckily, we can help you with all of the above, especially when it comes to nail art. Choosing the perfect design for the festive period is a decision we don't take lightly. We've searched Instagram to find an array of beautiful designs, including gold foil french tips, festive polkadots, and glittery stars. What's more, most of them don't need any fancy tools; just a few easy-to-find materials. So, whether you're taking a trip to the salon or giving a DIY [4] job at home, we've got plenty of easy festive-themed manicures to choose from ahead.
Festive Striping Tape
After applying a sheer neutral polish of your choice, simply lay silver, green, and red striping tape [5] down the middle of your nails. The trickiest part is getting it perfectly down the middle.
Green and Gold French Tips
We love this take on a classic french manicure, using emerald green on the tips and a subtle gold shimmer on the base of the nails.
Black French Tips
Whilst this isn't a traditional festive manicure, we adore the black french tips for an incredibly stylish design. If you want an immaculate finish like the one here by manicurist Julia Diogo, definitely leave this one for a salon trip.
All the Jewels
OK, so you might not be able to get swarvoski crystals like Gemma Chan has in this manicure by Michelle Class, but some gems from the craft store work for a beautiful at-home DIY [6] job. Paint a sheer pink base, glue your gems on, and top off with a high-shine top coat.
Rich Red Glitter Manicure
You don't need nail art with a polish this shiny and sparkly. Recreate the gift wrap effect with a red glitter polish like Barry M Glitter Nail Paint in Ruby Slippers [7] (£3) finished with a high-shine topcoat.
Rudolph Accent Finger Nail Art
This may look tricky, but if you use a dotting tool (a paperclip, mechanical pencil, or toothpick will also do), all you have to do is make two dots for the eyes, one larger dot for the mouth. As for the antlers, that can be easily done with patience and a striping brush.
Moody Festive Nail Art
For this simple, linear design, paint your nails with two coats of a deep oxblood-coloured nail polish. Then, using either gold nail art striping tape or a striping brush dipped in gold polish, just paint a horizontal line from one side of your nail to the other.
Negative Space Glitter Nail Art
Depending on the glitter polish you use, you can probably use the brush to push the glitter flecks neatly along one side of your nail bed across all 10 fingers. If the brush is too thick to get a thin line, then you'll need to break out the striping brush. For a similar holographic glitter, try Barry M Diamond Glitter Nail Paint [8] (£3).
Christmas Bow Decals
Sure, if you had to free-hand these little bows, we'd say give up and head to the salon. But manicurist Alice White used nail stickers from Enchanted Details [9] to create the design.
Festive Red and Green Tips
This festive French manicure sees silver glitter flecks layered over red and green nail polish painted over just the tips of the nails.
Gilded Accents Nail Art
This exact design was done at the salon using gels and a special gold chrome powder, but if you're patient, you can recreate it at home with a sheer neutral and gold polish carefully painted across the middle and tips of your nails.
Shades of Red Nail Art
Another festive look that requires no designs or special tools. Just break out all of your favourite red nail polishes and warm-toned glitters (copper, rose gold, yellow gold, etc) and arrange them on your nails however you want.
Abstract Christmas Tree Nail Art
This abstract evergreen is one of Dry By London's old festive nail art offerings, but if you have the patience, a sheer pink nail polish, a metallic green nail polish, and nail art brush, you can easily recreate this at home.
Christmas Polka Dot Nail Art
If you have a dotting tool, doing this design on yourself is super easy. Paint your nails with two coats of a sheer pink or sheer white nail polish. Then, dip the dotting tool into red, green, and gold polishes (cleaning off the tool between each colour) to add the tiny polka dots. Finish with topcoat.
Ombré Gold Tips
To recreate this look at home, you need gold nail polish and a makeup sponge. Paint the polish onto onto the tip of the makeup sponge (just on one side) and dab it onto the very tips of your nails — to ensure the most pigment is deposited right at the end of your nails — and then work your way down to create a faded, ombré effect.
Delicate Gold Outlines
For this look, you're definitely going to want a striping brush to get that clean outline of your nail bed.
Santa's Hat French Manicure
As long as you have a striping brush, painting a tiny Santa's hat onto the top of one nail shouldn't be too difficult. Tip: start with the red polish first, drawing it right along the tip of your nail and bringing it down at a right angle when you've reached the cuticle. Let that fully dry, them add the white stripe under the red and the pom pom at the end.
Green-and-Gold Manicure
Here's another look you're going to want a striping brush for. Once you've painted your nails green (an dnd let the polish dry), use the striping brush to trace your cuticles with gold polish.
Festive Chrome French Manicure
The key to this minimal design? A striping brush and a silver polish that's so shiny, it looks like chrome. We suggest trying Nails Inc. Steely Stare Chrome Nail Polish [10] (£15).
Crimson-and-Gold Dotted Nail Art
Another take on the polka dot design, just done in Christmasy red and gold (and yes, we still suggest a dotting tool for this one).
Festive Confetti Tips
If you get the right kind of glitter or sparkly nail polish, this design is actually quite easy to DIY [11]. First, you'll need an opaque white nail polish as your base layer (and since white tends to streak, make sure to do two even coats). You then have two options. You can either add topcoat and before it dries, scatter loose glitter flecks (like ones a makeup artist would use) onto the ends of your nails (concentrating most of the sparkle sat the very tips), or, if you can find a glitter topcoat with red and green glitter, all you have to do is paint that onto the top halves of your nails.
Gold Star Glitter Nails
To create this look, nail artist Betina Goldstein used a Nails Inc glitter polish that's been discontinued. But an even easier way to copy this look on your own is to use star-shaped nail decals, which you can easily buy on Amazon [12].
Gold Tartan Festive Nail Art
Painting a miniature tartan pattern isn't as much as skill as it is about patience (although, to make it look as perfect as nail artist Mei Kawajiri here, having excellent artistic skills is necessary). To create all of the different lines is quite time consuming, as you have to wait for each colour to fully dry to move onto the next. For this exact look, start with the gold base coat and let it set before painting thin red horizontal lines down your nails. Once the red lines have dried, add a thicker vertical line of sheer sparkly black along the left side of each nail. Again, let those lines fully dry before adding very slim white lines (using a striping brush) over the black polish. Then, finish with a thicker vertical berry-coloured stripe along the right side of your nails (you could also just use the red again). For this exact look, Mei used shades from OPI's Shine So Bright collection [13] including This Gold Sleighs Me, Red-y For the Holidays, Heart and Coal, Naught or Ice?, and Merry in Cranberry.
Christmas Ribbon Nail Art
You'll need white, red, and sparkly gold polishes to achieve this ribbon-like design. Start with the white, painting a thick horizontal stripe in a diagonal line across the middle of your nails (you may need to do two coats to get it nice and opaque). Let that dry, then use a striping brush to paint a red swoop in the middle of the white polish, almost like a collapsed Nike sign. Finally, once you've cleaned off all the red polish from your striping brush, dip it into the gold polish and use it to frame the white polish, making the lines slightly wavy to make it look like a piece of ribbon.
Candy Canes
You'll need a steady hand to give this fun angled french candy cane manicure a go.