With Thanksgiving mere days away, the holiday season is officially in full swing—and probably arriving sooner than many of us expected. If you’re anything like me, you’re still making time to mull over the perfect holiday nail designs, even with your pre-holiday to-do list growing longer by the minute. With nail trends constantly evolving, we’re looking for something unexpected and head-turning to wear to this season’s holiday parties. If that sounds like you, you’re in luck: “Christmas lights” nails just popped up on our explore pages, and they’re truly unlike any style we’ve seen.
How to Make Your Nails Look Like Christmas Lights
TikTok user @aminaoui’s Christmas lights nails had viewers everywhere in more than just awe, with some even jokingly accusing her of witchcraft because of her manicure technique that turns your nails into colorful bulbs of light in just a few steps. By combining different shades of gel polish over a silver cat eye gel, Amina’s Christmas lights-inspired nails appear to have a real, moving light within them as a result of the layered cat-eye shades and jelly-finished polishes.
To start, Amina uses Gelcare’s UV Gel Nail Polish in Patent Leather Black ($20) on all her nails. Then, she layers a coat of plain silver cat-eye gel onto each of them, pulling the pigments to the center with the included magnet to create that holographic, movement-like quality. (While she didn’t specify which cat-eye gel she used, there are tons of options on Amazon). Then, to create the classic array of colorful Christmas lights, the creator alternates between Gelcare’s UV Polish in shades Jellyfish Blue ($20), Pomegranate ($20), Highlighter Yellow ($20), Lightsaber Green ($20) and Fig ($20).
