Soap, milk, clean girl, quiet luxury. After a year full of minimalist nail designs and colors, all signs point to a full pendulum swing: This winter’s nail art trends are loud, proud, bright, shiny, and spotted. You’d be hard-pressed to find a “barely there” in the bunch.
Fall runways featured flashy, reimagined animal prints. It took one innocent selfie from Hailey Bieber—the harbinger of many nail trends—to make polka-dot nails explode in popularity. And suddenly our feeds were filled with edgy, 3D takes on silver molten metal. If you’re ready for your nail art to be less whisper, more shout, these winter nail art trends are a perfect, bold antidote to the neutrals and nudes that dominated much of 2025. Below, experts break down what their clients are asking for and what they expect to see trending this season.
Polka dots
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If bare nails are like chamomile tea and sculptural, 3D nails are the quad latte of nail art, polka dots are like a half-caff—a low-commitment pick-me-up. If you’re just coming out of your natural nail daze, a good entry-level design like coquettish dots is the perfect first winter mani.
But just because the design is simple doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Try a gradient Ben Day pattern (like the dots you see in comic-book illustrations or a Lichtenstein painting), create a black-and-white French manicure with dots just on the tips, à la Dua Lipa, or paint a Milky Way constellation of alternating sizes across the center. And of course, glazed pink nails with evenly-spaced white spots—like Hailey Bieber or Sabrina Carpenter—are a reliable go-to.
You’ll need a steady hand and the right tools to nail this trend, says Juanita Huber-Millet, founder and creative director of Townhouse salons. Otherwise, the spots will look amorphous, like a middle school art project done freehand. “Our nail artists work with dotting tools to ensure every detail is perfectly placed,” she explains. “It’s that precision and polish that elevate the look from playful to truly fashion-forward.”
A set like DND Dotting Nail Art Tools offers multiple dotting tips so you can create different looks. Use a larger, rounded tip for Minnie Mouse spots (see Sydney Sweeney’s inverted white-and-red polka-dot manicure; OPI Big Apple Red was practically made for this throwback combo) or a teeny pointed tip for delicate French hosiery dots (a sheer black like Cirque Colors NSFW Jelly makes a great base for black dots if you want that cheeky lingerie look). For a brighter vibe, Nails Inc. founder Thea Green recommends tiny green dots over hot pink (Wicked: For Good is in theaters this winter, after all).
Velvet French manicure
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.allure.com
