HALLOWEEN NAIL ART: Bright Orange Jack 'O Lantern Patch Nails

by - October 05, 2022

 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.   

In the world of Halloween nail art, I feel like the good old Jack 'O Lantern doesn't really get enough love these days, so I decided to go all in with orange and what I'm calling a Jack 'O Lantern patch for today's nail art design. I think, for me anyway, that one of the reasons I don't really gravitate towards Jack 'O Lantern nails is actually probably because I struggle with how to make them look interesting and cool. For this mani, though, I had a pretty specific idea as far as background as well as how to use a single stamping image to create a cohesive full mani and I think it worked pretty well.

Keep reading for more!


Now, I'm not entirely sure what you would call the technique that I used for the base for this mani, but I would say that it lives somewhere in the gradient family because it uses a makeup sponge to apply and blend a couple of different polishes together. I started by applying one coat of an orange créme polish to all of my nails as my base and letting that dry down. 

Next, I applied sort of... blobs of a deep reddish orange polish and a bright true yellow polish to my makeup sponge. I tried to apply the same amount of each of the two colors, though I do think I ended up doing a little bit more of a orange than the yellow. When sponging the polish onto the nails, I tried not to move the sponge around too much because I wanted to blend the polishes together without losing the yellow entirely - which would have been pretty easy since the orange was such a strong polish. I ended up doing two passes of my sponging to get the opacity and blend that I was looking for.


Once I had finished the sponging, I decided to go in with a warm toned iridescent flakie topper - a unicorn skin, if you will - to add some texture and glow to that background. This step also smooths out any strange texture or wobbles in the blend of the sponging, which I think makes for an overall smoother finished product.

For my stamping, I used one single image of a sort of pile of Jack 'O Lanterns on all of my nails. What I love about this image is that it's large enough to be a full cover image, but it has the vibe of a smaller single image with clear edges to the actual design. This allows for a little bit more freedom with placement that can really add a lot of dimension and interest to a mani using just this one image. For this mani, I decided to center the image on my middle two fingers and my thumb for that full cover vibe and then shift the image slightly at my first and pinkie finger to almost give the look of edges to the overall design. (Admittedly, I'm struggling to explain this....) Essentially what I wanted to do was give the look of one design moving across all of my nails and I think it actually worked out pretty well that way.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat so that I didn't end up with any smudging and then followed with a glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!


All Products Used
Dimension Nails - Julia Butterfly
Pueen - 804 Bright Yellow*
Pueen - 818 Candy*
Holo Taco - Solar Unicorn Skin
Pueen - 805 Black Jack*
Apipila Smudge Free Top Coat
Sweet & Sour Lacquer Gloss Sauce Top Coat
Pueen Halloween Party 01 Stamping Plate
Pueen Chunky Transparent Soft Stamper
Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard*

* = PR Sample


Not gonna lie, this definitely turned out even better than I was expecting and I was quite stoked looking at the finished product. I love the subtlety of the base. Because the two colors I used don't create much contrast, it ends up feeling more like a dance of the light or something at a glance, and I love that so much. I also really, really like how this stamping image ended up working out - I wasn't entirely sure how it would work to create the look I wanted, but it really was simple and smooth and exactly what I wanted.

If you're interested in trying out any of the Pueen products I used to create this mani, they are all available on Amazon and I personally think they're all really beautiful products. 

Check out @pblnails on Instagram for a video tutorial on how I did this mani and follow me there to keep up on all of my nail art - including new Halloween themed designs every day in October! 

Thanks for reading!


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