Halloween is quickly approaching, and it's time you get your spooky look perfected down to the very last detail. There are so many things you can do to your nails to get in the holiday spirit, and a lot of them don't even require a fancy nail salon. From ghosts, monsters, and skeletons to blood, pumpkins and candy corn, the possibilities are endless.
Depending on your costume, you can get as creative as you'd like with your nails, or you can go all-out to compensate for not dressing up. Some people prefer to stick to the usual black nail, but why be ordinary when you can stand out? These 10 do-it-yourself nail ideas will pop, and all the tools you'll need to create these designs should already be in your home! The only tool we suggest buying is a two-sided dotting tool, as it makes application for smaller details much easier.
1. Neon Orange With Glitter Gradient
Find the brightest and most obnoxious orange polish, and you're set. This design is simple, but makes a statement. The color used for the image shown is Illamasqua Gamma, but OPI also makes an awesome neon orange called The Time Is Pow from their Neon Revolution collection that will get the job done. For the glitter tips, try Maybelline's black and white Chalk Dust, or any color glitter polish of your choice, and only paint it on the top half of your nails once the orange polish has completely dried. (Source: Nail Loopy)
2. Blood Splattered
If you're looking for blood and gore to finish off a vampire-type costume, this look is not only easy to do, but absolutely terrifying to look at. The look can be done with any color base polish, but a white like OPI's Alpine Snow will allow the "blood" (which can be any shade of red) to stand out the most. To make the red splatter, the usual flinging of brushes can work, but iPolished came up with an interesting technique for maximum accuracy. Warning: this will get messy!
"I jimmied an angled floss pick on the lip of an upside down disposable Solo cup and used the floss pick as a catalyst to fling polish to my nail below," the blog reads. In order to keep your nails neat and clean, rub petroleum jelly around your cuticles to prevent the polish from sticking to your skin and make sure you have nail polish remover handy to fix up any mistakes! Photographed is Essie's Naughty N' Nice with China Glaze's Foxy. (Source: iPolished)
3. Eyeballs
Despite how detailed these creepy eyes turn out, the process is actually quite simple. Again, start with a white base, and then you'll need blue, red and black. If you're not comfortable using toothpicks or thin brushes to get detailed lines, a red nail pen is your best bet, and Sally Hansen makes a great one. For this design, the artist used Sinful Color's Snow Me White and Color Club's Endless Summer for the blue.
Start with a white base coat, and drop a circle of blue in the center of your nail. The messier the circle, the crazier it looks - and in this case, that's a good thing. Drop a smaller black dot in between, or draw one in with a sharpie, and then top that off with a tiny white dot. Toothpicks are a great tool for smaller dots if your polish brush seems too large. For the veins, start on the outside and draw in, following the design of the photo. Go as thick or thin as you please, but a wishbone shape seems to look the best. (Source: Flails and Nails)
4. Blood Tips
If splattering isn't your thing, and you'd rather your nails physically look like they're dripping blood, this is the gruesome look for you. "How I've been explaining it to people: it's as if I dripped my hands in blood and let it drip down," the blogger says in the tutorial video. For the base, use any sheer skin-colored polish to get the full affect. The blogger used one coat of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Twirl with another coat of Bone Daddy on top. These two colors seem to have been discontinued, but Essie's Nude Beach or Imported Bubbly are similar options. For the glittery affect, use one coat of China Glaze's Fairy Dust.
On a piece of paper, drop a dollop of any deep red polish, like Opi's Got The Blues For Red, and use a thick dotting tool to draw random drips on the tips of your nails, using a tinier drop tool to outline the drips with a brighter red, like Essie's Jelly Apple, and black, like OPI's Black Onyx, to look like dry blood. (Source: Queen Of Blending)
5. Candy Corn
For those of you that are team candy corn, this adorable design is just what you've been looking for. All you need is an orange, yellow and white polish and some tape and scissors to get perfect lines to turn your nails into the season's most popular candy. The most important part about this idea is to make sure you let the coats completely dry before you move on to the next color.
Start by painting your nails completely orange. Once that's dry, cut a piece of tape into a thin line and place it over the middle of your nail. Paint the space below the tape white, and the space above the tape white for a striped look. Once the polish is completely dry, peel the tape off and finish with a clear top coat for a festive manicure. (Source: Her Campus)
6. Mummy
This design is the most realistic of the bunch, as it actually looks as if your nails are wrapped up like a mummy. Take a tissue, preferably the cheap, non-fuzzy type, and cut it into thin strips. Paint your nails with a white polish of your choice and for once, work while the nails are still wet. It's best to do one nail at a time, as you have to work quickly to make sure the strips stick.
Lay the strips of tissue across the nail, overlapping in whichever direction you please, and use scissors to trim any excess tissue near your cuticles. Don't worry about trying to avoid getting these wet, either, as you can gently pat them dry to keep them looking fresh. (Source: Peace Love Polish)
7. Googly Eyes
Instead of sticking some little googly eyes on your wet nails, this design is much neater looking, and should last longer. Start with a solid black manicure, let it fully dry, and then use the bigger side of a dotting tool to make two white circles at the bottom of your nails. Once these dry completely, use a sharpie or the smaller side of the dotting tool with the same black polish to put dots in each of the white circles to look like googly eyes. Make each nail look as though the eyes are looking in different directions for a cute, yet still creepy, design. (Source: Notes From My Dressing Table)
8. Tim Burton Inspired Skeleton
Here's another black and white look that looks like it's straight out of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Paint four of your nails black and whichever one you want the skeleton to be on white. For the black nails, use a polish with a thinner brush, like Strip Rite's White, to create thin vertical stripes, as shown in the tutorial video. For the one white nail, a polish with a thin brush is also necessary, just in black this time. Use your dotting tool to create two large eyes and the black striping paint to create two tiny lines for his nose and one big curved and scored line for his mouth.
Follow the step-by-step directions shown below to make this look as perfect as possible! (Source: All Day Chic)
9. Black Cat
Cat costumes are popular because they're so simple to create. All you have to do is wear all black and throw some cat ears on, and that's it, you're done! To up your look a little bit, this black cat nail art will allow you to take your costume one step further than all the other cats out there. With different designs on each nail, it looks a lot more difficult than it actually is.
Use orange and black polishes of your choice to create alternating French tips on each of your nails. On all of the orange tips, use your dotting tool to create paw prints, as shown in the video. For the actual cat, color in the full tip with black, add some cat ears and use a white striping polish to create tiny white eyes, and fill in with a lime green polish. Use a thin black brush to create the rest of the tiny details and finish off with a clear top coat. (Source: Cute Polish)
10. Pumpkin
A simple, festive pumpkin that can be worn all throughout the season is perfect for any fall occasion. With a white base, two orange polishes and a sparkly green to create stems, this design is super easy and cute. Once your white base is completely dry, use Sally Hansen's Mandarin Mantra to paint the top half of your nails orange with two humps at the bottom. Then, use a darker orange, like OPI's Piazza Cake, to draw in some darker lines to shade the pumpkin and give it a curvy affect. Once that all dries, use Wet n Wild's SaGreena The Teenage Witch to draw tiny stems in between the two humps and that's it! For such a creative look, it really doesn't take much effort. (Source: Lacquered Lawyer)
