Tutorial: Snowflake

Hello everybody, welcome to my snowflake tutorial! Snowflakes have such beautiful and delicate shapes that instantly make a cute winter mani. In this tutorial I'll show you how to make a detailed but fairly simple snowflake. All you need is a small nail art brush and two matching polishes, let's start!


Begin with your base color (if necessary with a basecoat underneath) and let it dry. Because the snowflake will be quite detailed, I'd recommend using a plain base color like a creme or subtle shimmer polish, to keep the focus on your design.

Use your nail art brush and a contrasting polish/acrylic paint to draw three lines that cross each other in the middle.

Then add two small, slanted lines to each end of the lines you just drew. It's already starting to look like a snowflake now...

...but a little more detail will complete the design. So now add two bigger, slanted lines to just three of the six 'legs', alternating between each. The reason I'm suggesting to decorate only three of the six further, is because the nail simply isn't a very big canvas: if you'd add more of the slanted lines to every leg, the whole would look very tight.

Finally seal everything with a topcoat, clean up and you're done!

Use this design as a pattern on all nails or as an accent nail if you want to keep your mani simple.

Tip: Clean your nail art brush in between if you're using it for a long time. Because after a while polish will build up on it which can result in thick, goopy lines. Clean the brush by pouring a little bit of nail polish remover in a small dish (or the cap of the remover bottle), let your brush soak in it for a few seconds and dab it on a cotton pad a few times. Repeat this until your brush is clean.

I would absolutely love to see your attempt on this design, so feel free to leave a link to your creation in the comment section!

Polishes I used in this post are China Glaze First Mate and Essence Romeo (shimmer version).