Last day of 12 Nails Of Halloween? Already!? How did we get here???
If you read this blog or know anything at all about my style and tendencies in nail art, you'll know that hand painting is not my forte and I'm forever painfully jealous of people who are good at it. That said, one thing that I've learned is that hand painting with gel polish is about a million times easier and more forgiving, so I decided to give a little try a mani that I've wanted to do for AGES. I was inspired by this mani from @NailsByCambria from a couple of years ago and I was actually planning straight up sticking to the blood drips... but I decided at sort of the last minute to try and up my game a little bit and put my own spin on it.
Keep reading for more!
So for this mani, because it's gel, I started with a generous coat of Unt Peel Off Base Coat and let it dry completely before applying my gel polish. I started with two coats of UR Sugar 001 Black Gel Polish on all of my nails, curing for 60 seconds for each layer. Next, I applied a matte gel top coat to all of my nails and cured for 30 seconds. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the gel polish or the matte top coat - or if they just didn't get along with each other, but I didn't end up with the smoothest base possible and it drives me a wee bit crazy, but it is what it is.
Next, I moved onto my hand painting. For the straight blood drip nails, I started with a medium-large dotting tool and just applied a few dots of ASP Reveal Everything Red*, which is a warm red gel polish, to each nail and then dragged upwards towards the base of my nail to get the body of the drip. Next, I grabbed a teeny tiny little nail art brush and connected the drips together with small curved lines and filled in the image. Gel polish makes this SO MUCH easier than regular polish because it moves a little more smoothly and stays where you put it. I did each nail one at a time, curing once I was happy with the design.
For my ring finger, I decided at the last second that I wanted to do a creepy dripping skull face type of situation, so I went in with my nail art brush to create the eyes and nose (two blobs and an upside down heart) and then I used my dotting tool to dab a couple of blobs towards the tip of the nail like I did with the other blood drips. Once I had the shape I was looking for, I used my brush to fill in the entire design and cured.
Because I wanted to keep the base matte and the blood drips glossy, I finished by applying gel top coat only to the red bits of the nail (again, with my nail art brush) and cured for 60 seconds, wiping down the entire nail with nail cleanser to finish and voila!
All Products Used
Unt Ready For Take Off Peel Off Base Coat
UR Sugar Color Gel in Black
Morovan Matte Gel Top Coat
ASP Reveal Everything Red*
ASP Gel Top Coat*
NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool*
NailStuff.ca Nail Art Brushes*
(Use Affiliate Code TRYSH for 10% off at NailStuff.ca!)
Annnnnd there we go - another year of 12 Nails Of Halloween down! I can't believe it, honestly. I feel like the passage of time feels super strange right now, or maybe that's just because I'm finding myself in 2020 Burnout/Breakdown and nothing makes sense anymore. That was dark... I guess that's cool for Halloween?
Anyway, I hope that you have a safe and happy Halloween - and that if, like me, you're in a place that is having a COVID surge, you just stay home and watch spooky movies and... I dunno, eat the candy that you won't be giving out to trick or treaters. This is a weird year, but being safe and responsible this year will almost certainly mean that there are more people around to celebrate it next year. Sorry to end this on a note, but this is where my brain is at currently.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading and for sticking around through 12 Nails Of Halloween! In a few weeks, it'll be time for 12 Nails of Christmas!!!
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