Halloween Nails 6: Dracula

Nothing screams Halloween like Bram Stoker's Count Dracula so it seemed fitting that he'd appear somewhere in my list of Halloween nail art tutorials. See how you can get this cute Dracula manicure in six easy steps.

Rimmel London - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London a nail Tip Whitener

No 7 - 12 Temptress

Striper Brush

Dotting Tools

Now lets get creative!

1. Use a base coat to protect your nails from staining. Paint your nails white, you may need to paint two or three coats before the white will be streak-free.

2. Use your striper brush dipped in black polish to paint a black French tip at the top of your nail. Then draw a small point coming from the centre of the French tip like the top centre picture above.

3. Take your largest dotting tool and dip it in a dark red polish. Place two large dots side-by-side about halfway down your nail.

4. Take your striper brush and dip it in black polish again. This time draw a curved line beneath the eyes. Draw two small triangles coming from the curved line, these will be the fangs.

5. Take a slightly smaller dotting tool and dip it in black polish. Place a smaller black dot inside both dark red dots.

6. Finally, take your smallest dotting tool and dipping it in white polish dot two small circles inside the black dots from step five. Use a topcoat to protect your design.

Congratulations, you've nailed a fang-tastic nail art look in no time! 

Halloween Nails 5: Pumpkins

What says "Happy Halloween" better than a well cut jack o' lantern?pumpkins are a bright and cheery alternative to some of my darker Halloween nail art looks. Plus this one I'm about to show you here is very simple to do too!

To paint my pumpkins I used the following:

Rimmel London - 705 Tangy Tangerine

Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

GOSH - 12 Orange Splash

New York Colour -  298 High Line Green

Striper Brush/ Cocktail Sticks

Now for the painting!

1. Use a base coat to protect your nails from staining. Paint your nails white. This could use a couple of coats before it gets nice and streak-free, the way we want it.

2. Take your orange polish and paint a semi circle art the tip of your nail. This will be the top of your pumpkin.

3. Take your striper brush and dip it in your green polish. Paint a small stem growing from the top of your pumpkin.

4. Taking your striper brush again dip it in light orange. Use this to give some highlighting to your pumpkin, making it look a little less flat.

5. Use a topcoat to protect your nails from chipping. Clean up any messy bits with a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover.

There you have it! Pumpkin nails for Halloween.

Halloween Nails 4: A Crime Scene

Who doesn't enjoy watching procedural shows like C.S.I, Bones, Hannibal and the Mentalist? Do you know what all those shows have in common? Creepy crime scenes of the murder variety. Now if that doesn't sound like real-life Halloween horror, I don't know what does! So here is my take on a crime scene nail art look complete with police tape, chalk outlines and blood splatter.

To do this manicure I used:

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 030 Double Decker Red

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

Maybelline Color Show - 749 Electric Yellow

Striper Brush

Cocktail Sticks

Now for the fun part!

1. Use a base coat to protect your nails from staining. Once that's dry paint your nails black. Use as many coats as needed to make the black streak-free.

2. Take your striper brush and dip it in white polish. Staring about half way down your nail, paint a thick line that reaches down towards the opposite corner (towards the tip) of your nail.

3. Repeat step two but this time coming from halfway down the opposite side of your nail and crossing over the thick line made in step two. Your nail should now look like the nail in the top right picture above.

4. Paint over the white lines in yellow. The reason I used white first was to really make the yellow pop. If you paint yellow over black it tends to look dull, which we don't want for our police tape.

5. Now is the time to clean up your strips of police tape. Outlining them in black using a striper brush not only defines the tape but you can give your tape very clean, straight lines which is what we want for our tape.

6. Next taking your striper brush or cocktail stick dipped in black polish paint some lettering along your police tape. Because my nails are so small writing full words wasn't an issue but its good to have an idea of what words you're writing in your mind to make it look more realistic. I wrote "CAUTION - DO NOT CROSS" along my police tape. Your nails should now look like the second picture on the left above.

7. Now that we've got the lettering and straight lines out of the way we can get more creative! Dip your striper brush/ cocktail stick in white polish and draw your chalk outline. This may seem hard but really all you have to do is imagine your drawing around a very small stick man. I started with a circle for the head and then painted two small arms and a torso. Thanks to the police tape we've already painted we don't have to paint any legs on our chalk outlines which makes it easier again. Your nails should now look like the second picture to the right above.

8. Lastly, dip your striper brush in red polish and use this to create some blood dripping down from the top of the strips of police tape. This will add some Halloween gore and brighten up your manicure! Then use a topcoat to seal your design and protect from chipping.

Ta-dah!!! You've nailed an eerie crime scene manicure.

Halloween Nails 3: Frankenstein

Frankenstein is the epitome of classic Halloween horror. I studied the book by Mary Shelley last semester in college and loved it. So it seemed fitting that a Frankenstein manicure should appear somewhere in my Halloween nail art tutorials.

To nail this look you'll need:

O.P.I - Did it on 'Em (Nicki Minaj Collection)

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

Dotting tools

Striper brush/ Cocktail sticks

Frankenstein's Stitches

1. Use a base coat to protect your nails from staining then paint your nails a Frankenstein-esque green. Use as many coats as you need for the green to be streak-free.

2. Take your striper brush and dip it in black polish. Draw the lines in Frankenstein's skin that need to be stitched up. Your nail should look like the one in the top right picture above.

3. Take your striper brush again and using black nail polish, paint in short strokes to achieve the stitches along the lines created in step two. Use a topcoat to protect your design.

Frankenstein

1. Use a base coat to protect your nails from staining then paint your nails a Frankenstein-esque green. Use as many coats as you need for the green to be streak-free.

2. Take your dotting tool and dipping it in white, place two dots side by side about half way down the nail. These will be the eyes.

3. Take your striper brush and dip it in black polish. Create two curving lines beneath the eyes, these will make Frankenstein look like he has bags under his eyes (I doubt he sleeps very well!).

4. Using the same brush as before dip it in black polish again and draw two lines above the eyes slanting downwards as they come towards the centre of the face (Frankenstein isn't happy here). Then paint a hooked line, starting from the inside of the right eye and curving a little further down the face, this will be the nose.

5. Still using your striper brush and black polish paint a frowning mouth a short space beneath the nose. Draw lines extending from near the nose to near the mouth on both sides of the face to exaggerate how unhappy Frankenstein is. Then like we did with the stitches before, draw a small line anywhere on Frankenstein's face and create stitches across the line.

6. Finally, to give Frankenstein's eyes some character take your striper brush and dipping it in your green colour draw drooping eyelids across half of both the white circles. Beneath each eyelid, using your smallest dotting tool, place a dot of black polish (these will be the pupils). Once it's all dried, use a topcoat to protect your design from chipping.

Et voilà! Frankenstein nails for the gothic literature lovers out there.

Halloween Nails 2: Spiders and Cobwebs

My sister bought these cute spider earrings for Halloween in Tesco for €2.50 and asked me to do her nails to match. I figured since there's a pretty decent amount of people that are scared of spiders (how can you trust something with that many legs?!) that this would be a perfect addition to my Halloween nail art tutorials.

Firstly, I used the following to create this look:

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

Nails inc. - 072 Westminster

Dotting Tools

Striper Brush/ Cocktail Sticks

The Spiderweb

1. Use a base coat to prevent staining. Then paint the nails you want to have your spiderwebs on black. Make sure the black is streak-free, paint two or three coats if needed.

2. Take your striper brush/ cocktail stick and dip it in your white polish. Use this to draw a "+" from the top to the bottom of your nail.

3. Take the tool you used in the last step (I used a cocktail stick) and dipping it in white polish again, draw an "x" over the "+" making sure the centre of the "x" crosses through the centre of the "+". Your nail should now look like the bottom left picture above.

4. Take your striper brush/ cocktail stick with your white polish again and connect each strand of the cobweb to the next. I did this twice, once closer to the centre of the web and the second time towards the edge of the web. Your nail should now look like the picture on the right above.

5. Finish with a topcoat, protecting your design from chipping.

The Spider

1. Use a base coat again to protect your nails from staining. Paint the nails you'd like to have spiders on purple. Make sure it's streak-free, painting two to three coats if needs be.

2. Take your second largest dotting tool and dip it in black paint. Place a black dot about a third of the way down your nail.

3. Take your largest dotting tool and dip it in black polish again. Place a slightly bigger dot beneath the dot you just made in step two.

4. Take your striper brush/ cocktail stick and dip it in black paint. Draw four pairs of small black legs extending from either side of the spiders body. They should increase in size slightly as you work your way down.

5. Take a small dotting tool and dip it in white paint. Place two dots beside each other at the top of the smaller circle you made in step two.

6. Take your smallest dotting tool and after dipping it in black polish place a small dot inside each of the white dots you made in step five.

7. Use a topcoat to protect your design from chipping.

And there you have it!! An adorable, yet creepy halloween manicure you can do in no time!

Halloween nails 1: Tombstones

With college work having kept me busy lately my nail art has had to take a back seat. However, thanks to the long weekend, I'm doing a spooky Halloween nail art look every day from now until Halloween! Today I've gone for an incredibly easy to do tombstone nail art look. Want to know how to nail this look? Just follow these four simple steps.

Firstly though, you will need some supplies!

Nails Inc. - 072 Westminster

Rimmel London 60 Seconds - 805 Grey Matter

Rimmel London I love Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

New York Colour - 298 Highline Green

Sally Hansen Complete Care Extra Moisturizing 4-in-1 Treatment (base coat and top coat)

Striper Brush/ Cocktail Sticks

Now for the fun part!

1. Paint your nail a deep, dark purple. Purple is a great Halloween colour that you can use to brighten up a dull and dreary manicure. Paint as many coats as you need for the purple to be streak-free and then let dry.

2. Next, take your grey colour and paint an oval from three quarters down your nail to the tip. Fill the oval in with grey polish and let dry. Paint another coat if necessary, you don't want any purple to be seen beneath the grey area.

3. Now that you've the shape of your tombstone sorted you can take your striper brush/cocktail stick and dip it in green paint. To make the tombstone seem unkempt and overgrown (and a little more spooky) use the green polish to create short fine strokes at the base of the tombstone. This will look like overgrown grass.

4. The finishing touch is what you write on your tombstones. I went for a simple "R.I.P" because the tombstones are small and I must admit lettering is my least favourite part of most nail art designs. However, if you're feeling particularly morbid/creative you could paint the names of famous Halloween celebrities to make your tombstones seem more realistic. Clean up the messy bits with a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish remover and then use a topcoat to seal in your design.

Ta-dah!! You've nailed the first of my spooky Halloween nail art looks!

Autumn Nails!

Woodland creatures are set to take off in a big way in the fashion world this Autumn and Winter. I decided to paint an owl, a fox and a little squirrel on my index, middle and ring fingers. Then I added an autumnal gradient with a tree silhouette on my big thumb and pinky finger.

The colours I used to create this look are:

GOSH - 596 Miss Mole

GOSH - 570 Peachy

New York Colour- 298 High Line Green

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 030 Double Decker Red

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London I heart Lasting Finish - 805 Grey Matter

Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

Cookie Monster Nails!

Om nom nom nom, cookie cookie cookie? Yes, the Cookie Monster from The Sesame Street has made it to my nails and I'm about to show you guys just how easy it is to do this nail art look yourselves!

You will need:

Dotting tools (which I talk more about here)

Small paintbrush/striper brush (which I talk about here again)

Clear base/topcoat

Blue Nail Polish - Catrice 400 Blue Cara Ciao

White Nail Polish - Rimmel London Nail Tip Whitener

Black Nail Polish - Rimmel London I love Lasting Finish 080 Black Cab

Light Brown Polish - Gosh 596 Miss Mole

Dark Brown Polish - Catrice 720 Bruno Brownani

Cotton Buds

Nail Polish remover

This is a really simple tutorial with only eleven easy to follow steps. It took me about a half hour to do this look from start to finish including drying time. Now enough preamble, down to the fun stuff!

The Cookie Monster Nail

Step 1: Take your blue polish and paint a semicircle of blue about half way down your nail.

Step 2: Take your largest dotting tool and dip it in the black polish. Dot this in two circles in the centre of the semicircles edge.

Step 3: Take your next smallest dotting tool, coat it in your white polish. Dab two white circles within the black ones.

Step 4: To make your Cookie Monster look as crazy as possible give him wandering eyes by dotting two small black dots looking in opposite directions inside the white circles.

Step 5: Take a very small brush and dip it into your black polish. Paint a smiling, wide open mouth just a little beneath the eyes.

Step 6: Dip a cotton bud in nail polish remover and clean up any messy bits. Use a clear topcoat to seal in and protect your design.

The half-eaten Cookie Nail

Step 1: Paint your entire nail blue.

Step 2: Paint a semi circle two thirds of the way down your nail in your lighter brown colour.

Step 3: Dip your small brush into your darker brown polish, use this to paint a jagged edge along the semicircle giving the cookie it's half-eaten look.

Step 4: Take your smallest dotting tool and dip it in your darker brown. Dot this at random inside the semi circle so that it looks like chocolate chips.

Step 5: Once again, dip a cotton bud into nail polish remover and clean up any messy bits. Then use your clear topcoat to give the nail a polished finish.

In eleven simple steps you've managed to nail the Cookie Monster nail art look. Now that's what I call tasty!

'Friends' Nails!

Could these nails be any more Friends orientated?! (Excuse me, channeling my inner Chandler!) But yes, the summer, for me, has meant watching reruns of Friends pretty much every evening. So the hit TV show was my inspiration for my nails this week!

Excuse the mess on my thumb nail, I would have used a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover but I'm away from home at the moment and because I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my shoulders I forgot my nail polish remover (le gasp!).

If you've watched Friends as religiously as I have I'm sure you can guess what's on each nail. However, on the off chance you can't, let me break it down for you. The Friends logo stretches across my thumb and pinky nails, the Central Perk coffee shop sign is on my index, then there's the peephole from the door in Monica's apartment on my middle fingernail and of course no Friends mani would be complete without Smelly Cat on my ring finger!

Now, I must admit I used a lot of colours for this. Here is the list:

Nails inc - 411 Elm Park Gardens

Nails inc - 042 Hampstead Gardens

Nails inc - 210 Floral Street

Catrice - Blue Cara Ciao

Catrice - 700 Birdy Reloaded!

Gosh - 571 Wild Lilac

Rimmel London I love Lasting Finish - 030 Double Decker Red

Rimmel London I love Lasting Finish - 080 Black Cab

Rimmel London 60 Seconds - 805 Grey Matter

The only tools I used for this were my set of dotting tools and cocktail sticks. The details took about a half hour/ forty minutes to do but I had time and had always wanted to see if I could actually do a Friends manicure! If you had been painting this what iconic Friends related things/ phrases would you have used? I must admit, I had thought about painting "we were on a break" instead of Smelly Cat!

Cheeky Monkey Nails!

After buying two new Catrice Cosmetics Ultimate Nail Lacquers I decided to do a manicure with my new purchases! I actually really recommend Catrice nail polishes to anybody. They are €2.45 each in Penneys stores across the country. Catrice polishes are the best for those of us that want all the colours just because, who knows, you may one day need them! I personally love Catrice polishes because they are cheap, come in a huge variety of colours, paint on thick and pigmented while lasting a good week on my nails sans chips!

I bought two colours on my last trip into Penneys, 700 Birdy Reloaded! (a bright yellow colour with a slight shimmer to it) and 720 Bruno Brownani (a deep, dark brown colour). Both of these colours go on smooth and a little thick. The yellow bottle suggests using two coats for best coverage but I honestly find that with these colours, more often than not one coat does a perfect job!

                                                      

For this manicure you'll also need a dotting tool and a striper brush which I talked about in this blog post. On top of those you'll also need nail polish colours in a lighter brown (I used Gosh 596 Miss Mole), white and black.

First we'll look at the banana nails:

Paint your index, middle and pinky fingers with your yellow nail polish

Once the yellow has dried take a striper brush and dip it in back paint. Here we are going to paint small black outlines of bananas starting from the nail bed and reaching out to the tips of your nails.

As you can see here, I am not that great at drawing bananas, but it's okay it's supposed to look a little more abstract than your average banana as it's just black outlines on a yellow base. Paint as many or as few as you want, I liked to paint some bananas curving in the opposite direction to the others but again, it's up to you how you want them to look.

Next up are your monkey nails! These are surprisingly easy to do and look really cute, plus they only take five minutes from start to finish. Firstly you need to take your dark brown and paint almost all of your thumb and ring fingernails with it, leave an arc of your natural nail unpainted at your nail bed, as you can see below. Then I want you to paint your lighter brown in an arc again from about half way down your nail like so.

Next we'll create the monkeys ears. Take your dotting tool and dip it in dark brown paint, dot it on either side of the dark brown arc. Then pick a smaller sized dotting tool and dip it in your lighter brown. Dot this light brown circle within the two small dark brown circles and voilà you have cute monkey ears!

Now for the finishing touches that are going to take this oddly shaped brown blob and turn it into your cute monkey design! The eyes are simple, take your largest dotting tool and dip it in white nail polish. Dot the white in two circles, close to each other at the centre of the light brown arc. Take a smaller dotting tool and dip it in black. Once the white has dried dot a small black pupil inside each eye. The nostrils are just a little below the eyes. You take your smallest dotting tool and dip it into your black once more. Then you just place two small dots beneath the eyes and you have painted your little monkey.

Simple, right? Obviously you can use different colours, go crazy! Have purple and blue monkeys on your nails, they are your nails after all! Once you've done the above steps just make sure to use a good top coat to keep your nail design protected.

Here is a photo of how this design turned out on me. I really enjoyed doing this manicure as it's super easy and not at all time consuming. The best part of all was that I didn't need to spend a fortune on lots of different expensive nail polishes!

Nail Art Tools!

A few people have asked me lately how I do my nail art designs so I've decided to tell you all exactly what I use so you can try them out yourselves!

 

1. Dotting Tools

Dotting tools are easily found pretty much anywhere on the internet. You can pick up a nice varied set of them for as little as €1.15 on ebay like these. However, if you for some reason don't like using your credit card online like me then you can pick up the above set in the Art & Hobby shop in Stephen's Green shopping centre in Dublin for about €3, I'd imagine you should be able to purchase them in any craft shop for a reasonable price.

Dotting tools are just double ended sticks that have metal pins poking from either end. These pins have various sized spheres at the end of them. These spheres are then dipped into your nail polish and dotted on your nail. This leaves a perfect circular dot on the nails surface.

Alternatively if you decide you don't want to commit to spending your precious euros on an artistic whim, here's a few examples of handy household items that you can use instead of a dotting tool:

•  cocktail sticks (for smaller dots)

• Bend a bobby pin out (you can use either end to dot with)

• Stick a pin into the eraser of a pencil (you can use the end of the pin to dot away)

2.  Striper Brushes

Striper brushes are again, easily found on the internet. If you want a large varied set that have brushes for different textures and techniques look here. They're for as little as €1.15 on ebay again. However, if you've searched high and low for a shop that sold them in Ireland search no more! Hairspray down Henry Street in Dublin has a wide variety of good quality striper brushes for about €5 each.


Striper brushes are paint brushes with thin heads that create perfectly smooth lines and stripes on your nails surface. I personally prefer a thin short brush head as it gives me more control when painting designs but it's really up to you what brushes you decide to invest in. Bigger brush heads like the fan brush above create different textured surfaces which leads to some creative nail art designs.

 

There are, as always, easy to find household items that double for striper brushes too. Although, I must admit even having just one proper striper brush in your collection is a great asset as it is handy when you want to do fine lines. However here are a list of alternative tools you could use instead of a striper brush:

• cocktail sticks (dip in paint and draw along in the desired line, however cocktail sticks don't make the neatest lines because they have one wooden tip as opposed to smooth bristles)

• thin paint brushes (i find that the bristles don't work as well with nail polish/remover in these)

• nail polishes with striper brush heads built in, instead of the usual flat ones

3.  Masking Tape

This is an easy tool to find at home and is a great thing to have when you want to create a geometric design on your nails. You cut the tape into strips at the desired width and length for your design. After your base coat has dried fully you just place the tape where you want to and paint over it. Before this new coat has dried you remove the tape and see your new clean cut, geometric design.

4.  Cotton Ear Buds

We all have them in the dark recesses of some bathroom cabinet but have you ever thought to use them for cleaning off those messy outside the line bits of nail polish around your finger nails after you've painted them? Well now you know that when painting your nails cotton ear buds are definitely a must. However you could use a cheap make up brush dipped in nail polish remover and sweep it around your nail bed to remove that mess and clean up your manicure!

5.  Sponges

Sponges are great for creating soft textures on your nails and cute designs, for examples check out my tutorial that uses a sponge here. You can see there that I used a sponge for a quick and easy nail art look, which is what makes having a sponge with you when doing nail art a great idea. Your sponge needn't be pricey, I bought this set in Penneys that came with three nice sized sponges for €4 but you can literally use any sponge at all, sure chop off the corner of the sponge in the kitchen sink!

I hope this helped all you fellow nail art lovers in your quest to have the craziest nails.