Hello and welcome! Since there’s only two more weeks for Halloween manis, I’m doing a patchwork of designs today.
I had so many saved ideas for this spooky holiday. Some of them were the classic black and orange, but this week I was drawn to the colorful combos. And you can see the rest of my inspirations on my Pinterest board. Just in case you need a few ideas. So for this week, I went with a Frankenstein theme that looks like it was done by a nail tech named Steph. I liked this one the best because it was colorful, I could use nail vinyls, and try some free hand painting.
What I Used:
- Base Coat: Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
- 1st Color: Live Love Polish – HYPE
- 2nd Color: OPI – Alpine Snow
- 3rd Color: Sinful Colors – Let’s Talk
- 4th Color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Black to Black
- Top Coat: Glisten & Glow – Top Coat
- Maniology Poli-Peel cuticle protector
- Twinkled T Halloween Variety vinyls
- Twinkled T striping tape & painter’s tape
- Maniology double sided nail art brush & dotting tool
- sponge
- Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
- nail polish remover
I started with base coat and then two coats of an insanely bright green. On the first coat I was thinking that it would definitely need three (maybe even four) coats. But the second coat took me completely by surprise and covered the whole nail in sparkly goodness. And the second thing that surprised me was how smoothly it dried. This polish looks very glittery & gritty, but it’s somehow not textured.
The actual design was a little all over the place, but I tried to keep track of it all. I started with the nail vinyl on my pinky, and the diagonal tape on my ring and pointer fingernails. The nail vinyls were a variety sheet, so I only had one dripping paint/blood design. But luckily my pinkies are small enough to share half a vinyl each. As for the diagonal lines, I used painter’s tape at the request of my boyfriend and it worked pretty well. The only problem was that it lost it’s stickiness pretty easily. Then I randomly added purple and white over the green (which was a mistake that I’ll learn later).
Next, I put the spider web vinyl on my thumb nail. And instead of just normally painting it, I decided to sponge on the black in a semi-gradient. I had to then wipe of the vinyl and use it on my other thumb too.
For the Frankenstein on my left hand I made the whole nail purple before adding the hair, eyes, and mouth. And once the diagonal lines were dry, I used striping take to block off the next triangle of color. The striping tape did lift some sections that weren’t completely dry. But I didn’t mind because it was going to be covered by the lines & stitching.
Lastly, I added the pupils to the Frankenstein eyes and added top coat. But this is where I learned my mistake. Somehow, the top coat brought out the purple underneath the white. Without top coat the white looked perfectly opaque, but it slowly turned in to a purple haze. Of course I tried fixing it the next day when I knew the white was absolutely dry (along with a second round of top coat for the rest of the nails). But it didn’t matter because the white still turned purple. So instead of having purple Frankenstein eyes, I just added top coat all around the eyes, and left them a little rough. And since the black blended in to the purple, I added white outlines to the purple Frankenstein face.
With so many steps, this mani took ages. But luckily, I did one hand at a time so I didn’t have to worry about the purple mistake on my right hand. Even with all the top coat trouble, this mani was adorable and I got a few compliments on it.
Hope everyone enjoyed their week!
Update:
With the doubling up of top coat these nails lasted perfectly. I barely even had any wear on my thumbs, which is normally where I get the worst chips. And I was very pleased to find out that the green glitter was relatively easy to take off. It was glitter so it still took some effort, but it wasn’t half as bad as I was expecting it to be.
Weekly Nail 