Halloween Nails - Sugar Skulls & Passionfruit Tea

HelloOOooO everyone! More Halloween nails today of course! Todays prompt for the Glam Nails Challenge October is Sugar Skulls. I have done sugar skull nails a couple of times before, always freehand, and I've always liked the way they came out. The first time was a full set which reminds me of a holiday I went on in the run up to Halloween one year, you can see them here. The others I did last year, with the same base I used for these ones, and some autumn leaves too, you can see them here. I used a tutorial by Hannah Rox It nails for the shapes.

This time I did the Hannah Rox It skulls the other way up to last time, the same way as she does it in her tutorial. I think it looks better this way as it suits the shape of my nails better. I also missed the outline of the eyes with this one and I think they look better for it. While the first time I did multi coloured eyes, then chrome ones, this time I picked the pastel shades of my two new Cuticula polishes, and finished the look off with a matte top coat to bring out the details and colours. I enjoy the simplicity of it and I'm pleased with how the skulls came out, I definitely don't want to take them off!

Colours used: Passionfruit Tea - Cuticula, Sugary Sweet Death - Femme Fatale, Lady In Black - OPI, Honeydew Tea - Cuticula

Halloween Nails - There Are Ghosts In My Tea!

Hello all and happy Sunday! Sun is very much shining here today which is lovely, but definitely feeling very autumnal still. I am fully embracing it now! Today I'm back with another prompt for the Glam Nails Challenge October on Instagram. Today the theme is ghosts, and I was keen to use my new Cuticula nail polish as a base. This gave me the idea of making them tea themed as well, as it's from a tea themed Cuticula collection. I also recently purchased some autumn stamping plates with tea images, as well as some Halloween ones, so it seemed like a perfect combination.

As above I started with a base of Honeydew Tea from Cuticula. I then used the advanced stamping technique to make decals for the tea and book images, as well as the teapot, all images from the new Mo You London Fall In Love 08 stamping plate. On my ring finger I just used the top half of the pile of books image as I had less nail space. I then used white stamping polish and the Halloween 13 plate, also Mo You London, for the ghosts. I couldn't quite fit it on my thumb so it looks a bit more like steam than a ghost, but I still like it! I finished the look with a matte top coat as it makes the colours pop and I thought it worked well with the book images too.

In conclusion I really like these! The shade of green is unlike other polishes I have, and I love the images from the stamping plates. I had fun combining two different themes and I really like the way it looks. I also enjoy the Cuticula tea themed polishes too, I love a concept collection! There are six pictures today instead of my usual four, as I wanted to get a couple with my little ghost in a bottle, Boo-vier!

Colours used: Honeydew Tea - Cuticula, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Laguna - Barry M, Cobalt Blue - Barry M, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Basil Street - Nails Inc

Day vs Night Nails

Hey everyone, back again with another entry to the Holo Taco nail art challenge. This weeks theme is Day vs Night. I was not expecting this one, they are getting quite creative with the themes, after the first few themes of Unicorn, Spring and Easter I was expecting something more generic like Mermaids (not dissing the mermaid theme though - I would enjoy that one too!). I decided to do one hand for the Day theme and the other for the Night, details below.

Day - For this I started with a blue base, medium blue on three of my nails (colours listed below the pictures) and a darker blue on my thumb and ring finger nails. Over the darker blue I used an untried polish, a beautiful flakie topper from Cuticula called Candy Crush. I really love the way it looks over navy! The navy polish also holds special memories for me as it was a gift from my boyfriend. On my other fingernails I tried to theme them around things we've seen on our daily walks, so we've got a cat, some bees, and a rainbow. The bees were added using the advanced stamping technique to create decals, for the cat face I used regular stamping, and the rainbow was freehand as you can probably tell!

Night - For the night time nails I used a similar lay out, with a purple metallic base and darker accent nails. You can't really tell very well in the pictures but the black actually has a green/purple/blue metallic shift to it under the silver glitter which I added over the top. I think this base gives the glitter some extra depth, and enjoyed the layering effect. It feels relevant to the theme too as I know Cristine from Simply Nailogical has gone for a layering effect with many of the Holo Taco polishes. I used advanced stamping for the stars and cat on the moon, and regular stamping for the cat face. The cat face showed up better than I expected over the purple, but the stars didn't come out very well, I think I went over the lines too much!
Colours used: Can't Find My Czechbook - OPI, My Car Has Navygation - OPI, No FOMO - Wikkid Polish, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Casablanca - Jessica Nail Polish, Diamond Glitter - Barry M, My Mate Illuminate - Wikkid Polish, Bikini Bombshell - Wikkid Polish, Joyful L'il Jellybean - Wikkid Polish, Candy Crush - Cuticula