12 NAILS OF HALLOWEEN: Dark & Spooky Layered Skull Nail Art

by - October 28, 2020


There are some mani's that I just always come back to, but I always try to change them up a enough that they feel a little bit fresh. One of my favorite mani's from my 2019 12 Nails Of Halloween was my Speckled Grunge Skull Nail Art, which was a really, really simple mani using one of my favorite polishes to reach for at this time of year, and I knew that I wanted to use that same stamping image in another mani this year. I actually considered just a straight up recreation, but ultimately I decided that I should probably change it up a little bit, so I took it to a bit of a darker place, but made it a little bit more fun with some holo and irridescent flakes that make it a bit of dark rainbow magic, if you ask me.  

Keep reading for more!


Because I wanted this look to be dark and spooky - as the title of this post implies - I started with two coats of JULEP's Ebony, which is a really deep smoky grey holo. I would actually generally call this a black holo, but it's definitely distinctly grey. I decided that I wanted to have a little bit more interest, texture and colour while keeping it dark and smoky so I added a coat of ILNP's Paradox (H) which is a multichrome flakie topper that's packed with gorgeous scattered holo and basically makes me pant. It's HARD to capture in photos, but just look at it in the macro shot. Ughnnnn. Ahem. 


Next, for the stamping, I decided to start with a lighter grey for the first layer and then follow it with black to really both define the image but also keep it nice and deep and spooky. (I keep getting distracted by that macro and I am not ashamed of it. Ahem...)  Layering the stamping can be a little bit tricky, but I think in this case the sort of imperfect lines actually add to the spookiness - or at least that's what I'm going with.

Once I had finished my stamping, I first sealed in my design with a layer of water based top coat and then finished with a generous coat of quick dry glossy top coat and voila!


All Products Used
JULEP - Ebony
ILNP - Paradox (H)
Clear Jelly Stamper - #15 Stone Cold
What's Up Nails - Neither Noir
Suncoat Water Based Top Coat
QUO Flash Dry Top Coat
Nicole Diary L-12 Stamping Plate
Beauty Big Bang Clear Stamper


Sometimes I feel like all of my nail art should be really ambitious when it comes to techniques and stuff and I end up forgetting that simple can be really, really impactful. Also, that really amazing base polishes with cool details make me very, very happy. I actually almost didn't share this one... but I just had to!

Be sure to come back on Friday for my very last 12 Nails Of Halloween for this Spooky Season!

Thanks for reading!

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