Valerie Fischel
Easy Halloween Nail Tutorial: The Cutest Little Ghosts

Most of us can’t wear a Halloween costume to work or class on October 31 (though those damn fun-size Snickers bars will still be everywhere). But all of us can get in the Halloween spirit with subtle-yet-festive nails! And no, we’re not talking about just painting your tips a bright pumpkin orange. Over the next few days, we’re going to show you some Pinterest-worthy nail styles. 

The celebrity nail artist Miss Pop, AKA Simcha Whitehill, taught us how to do this ghostly design, which got me compliments everywhere I went.

You will need:

Tools:

  • Dotting tool with a small dot at one end and a larger dot at the other
  • Long, thin paint brush
  • A piece of paper or mini paint palette (to pour polish onto)
Polish Colors:
How to get the look:

  1. Paint your nails with a base coat. I love the Oxygen Smoothing Base Coat from Julep.
  2. Once the base coat is dry, paint your nails with two coats of OPI’s A Grape Fit or another the purple polish.  
  3. Pour some white polish and some black polish on your mini palette. Now it’s time to do the ghosts! Dip your long, thin paint brush into the white polish. Use it to paint ghosts on two of your fingernails. You could paint whole ghosts, or half ghosts like we did above.
  4. Give the ghosts eyes and a mouth by dipping your dotting tool into black polish. Make one small dot for the eyes and a bigger dot for the open mouth. 
  5. Now it’s time to make the ghostly “drips” on two of your other nails. Turn around your dotting tool so you’re using the larger dot. Dip it into the white polish. Carefully draw “drips” coming out from the tips of your nails, sort of like a French manicure gone wrong.
  6. You have one unpainted finger left! (For me, it was the pinky.)  Take your long, thin brush with the white polish on it and spell out the shape of the letters BOO.  Don’t worry about getting the lettering exact — you’re going to use the black dotting tool to make two dots on the “B” and one larger dot on each of the “O”s.  
  7. After letting your nails dry for about five minutes, finish each nail off with a top coat.
See? It’s super-easy and cute to boot. But if, perchance, ghosts aren’t for you, then try our Spookly Adorable Skull tutorial or our Glittery Black Fade tutorial.