I love a signature. Whether it's a signature scent or a signature style or whatever, I feel like there's just something about really digging into something that's just yours that's so cool. Two years ago at Christmas, I came up with an idea that has become a sort of signature mani of mine and it's one that I tend to try and pull out some version of for a lot of different occasions/themes. For this Halloween, I had actually intended to change it up only slightly, but in the end I actually feel like I changed it up quite a bit and I am.. fairly madly in love with the end result, if we're being honest. 

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I picked up a few really beautiful sheer polishes this past year and I knew that at least a couple of them would be making appearances during this Halloween season. One of those was Cirque Colors' Haze Jelly, which is this gorgeous ashy lilac purple sheer, and it really ended up being the drive behind this entire design.

To create the base, I did my usual jelly sandwich technique using a sheer polish along with a flakie topper to create a really beautiful see through sort of vibe. This is a really easy technique to do and it can actually be really helpful in camouflaging any imperfections on your natural nails so that you might feel a little more confident wearing a sheer base. To start, I apply one coat of sheer polish to all of my nails. Next, I go in with one coat of flakie topper - in this case, Starrily's Unicorn, which is my absolute favorite. If you want a little bit more texture or coverage, you could go in with another coat of flakes at this point as well. Finally, I finish with one more coat of sheer polish to sandwich the flakies and give a really pretty depth.

Now comes the fun part! First, I created the holo gradient tip, which is actually really easy but hugely impactful. Using a makeup sponge, I apply one line of the holo polish - which, in this case, is Color Club's Under Pressure - and then right next to it I apply a couple of lines of clear polish. This is by far the best way I've personally found to create that smoothly fading gradient tip without disrupting the base polish. For his mani, I did two passes of sponging to get this opacity and blend.

For the stamping, I really wanted to keep it simple but create a pretty strong contrast. Initially I had planned on only doing the spiderweb images and actually layering them at the tip, but ultimately I decided to add some art towards the base of the nail as well. I started by applying the spiderweb image at the tip of all of my nails in the exact same position using white stamping polish. Next, I alternated between that same spiderweb image and this really cute bats image in a dark purple stamping polish. 

Finally, once I was happy with the design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then followed with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

Ahhhhhhhhh! I'm so obsessed with this, I swear. I love, love, love the way the purple jelly sandwich base turned out because it perfectly walks that line of being subtle but also having some really pretty visual interest. I also really love the way the stamping turned out. It happened a little bit on the fly and wasn't what I originally intended to do, but I think it did exactly what I was hoping it would and also brought something a little different from other tips I've done similar mani's. Love!

If you want to see video tutorials for all of the mani's I post here on the blog and keep up on all of my nail art, be sure to head over to @pblnails on Instagram and follow me there! Also, don't forget to check back here for new Halloween themed nail art designs every day in October!

Thanks for reading!