Hello and welcome! This is my final Halloween mani so I decided to stick with a more classic design (and hopefully it doesn’t clash with my costume).

Recently I was at my local CVS and saw Essie’s new fall collection in stock, which is rare where I’m from. Of course, I couldn’t help myself from buying their copper shade. It’s just so beautiful, and all over Instagram which makes it so tempting. So my design decisions were completely driven by this color. I found a very pretty orange to black gradient on Pinterest and knew that would have to be my base. And when I dug through my nail art supplies, I found some very old nail art stickers from Maniology (Bundle Monster when I bought them). I figured the stickers would be an easy mani in comparison to last weeks hodge podge of art.

What I Used:

• Base Coat: Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
• 1st Color: Essie – Say It Ain’t Soho
• 2nd Color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Black to Black
• 3rd Color: Trend It Up Glitter Paint – 030
• Top Coat: Cuticula – Sour Patch Candy Timeless Top Coat
• Maniology Poli-Peel cuticle protector
• makeup sponge
• Maniology white glow-in-the-dark nail stickers
• Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
• nail polish remover

I started with base coat and two coats of Essie – Say it ain’t Soho. It was actually perfectly opaque after the first coat. But I did the second to make sure it didn’t dry with any weird streaky brushstrokes. Unfortunately I fell asleep before it was dry, and I ended up with blanket marks and bubbles anyways.

Well next, I applied liquid latex all around my nails to prep for the gradient mess. Since it was just the orange and black, I knew there was going to be a harsh transition. But I still wanted to try my best to blend it all together. After one coat of the gradient, the black was barely there. And after two coats, it was just about perfect. But some nails needed a third, so I just went ahead a did three for all my nails. I think the most annoying part about gradients is waiting for them to dry. I always run in to the problem of doing the next coats too quickly, and lifting the color instead of adding to it.

Once the gradient was completely dry, I grabbed an orange glitter and made a circle/oval on my thumb and ring finger nails. Lucky for me, the Trend It Up brushes are rounded or else I would have never been able to free hand a circle. And I made these circles because I wanted my cat stickers to not only pop from the background, but to also look like they are sitting inside of a “moon”. But little did I know, those cat stickers were going to be more of a problem than I was expecting. I’m guessing that the stickers have just gotten so old that they basically glued themselves to the paper backing. So I had to get a little creative. I grabbed some warm water and let the sticker sit for a few seconds so I could pull it off the back. I basically treated them more like water decals than stickers.

And of course, since it is the day of candy, I had to use my Sour Patch scented top coat to finish. Maybe not the best idea when you’re trying not to eat all the candy you see. But it all felt very fitting for this holiday. In the end, I think these look absolutely perfect for Halloween. I love that the orangey copper is so metallic and shimmery. The black really brings out some spooky vibes, and the cats are just the perfect amount of class and spook.

I hope everyone has a delightful Halloween!

Update:

This week was bit confusing and surprising. By the weekend the tips to almost all my nails had completely worn off. So I assumed that they wouldn’t last. And that I was destined to have chips and then picking. But somehow, that was the extent of the wear. The tips never got any worse, and there wasn’t any chipping. So I must have just did something over the weekend that was tough on my nails, and stopped during the week. Either way, I’m just glad that they made it through to Halloween night.