12 NAILS OF HALLOWEEN: Sophisticated Matte Spiderweb Nails

by - October 14, 2020


So... For today's mani, I gave myself a bit of a challenge. I absolutely love Halloween nails, but I woudn't necessarily call any of the designs I tend to do at this time of year particularly "sophisticated", so I found myself sitting down and asking myself what would a sophisticated Halloween mani look like. Ultimately, I think this is a sort of subjective question, because I think the idea of sophistication would likely eliminate nail art entirely for some people while others would take a different view. Sophistication is, I think, generally a really subjective notion overall. Anyway, I think that this spiderweb mani with a modified french tip and a matte top coat is about as close as I can get to my idea of what "sophisticated" means. 

Keep reading to see how I did it!


When it came to choosing the base colour, I knew that I wanted to go with a nude, and ultimately I decided that I wanted a sort of ashy caramel kind of nude. There's something about this tone of nude that I think has a maturity that doesn't feel old, which I guess is sort of what I associate with sophistication, and it felt like it would be a really solid base for this mani. I applied two coats of ASP Long Wear Polish in Not Again* to all of my nails and let those dry down completely.


For the stamping, I went with what is probably my favorite spiderweb image of all time. The reason that it felt like it fit this mani is because there's a laciness to this spiderweb and a delicacy to the lines that just really felt right to me. I alternated flipping the image on my nails so that there would be a little bit of subtle interest even though I was using the same image for all of them.

Next, I really, really wanted to do a modified french mani for this look because I wanted to exaggerate the coffin shape of my nails and add some graphic interest while still keeping it fairly minimal and subtle. To do this I used a really thin liner brush along with a super pigmented black polish to do this and, honestly, even for a non-handpainter it actually went really easy. Once I had gotten the shape that I wanted, I filled it to the edge of the nail and let that dry.

To finish, I sealed in my nail art with a coat of water based top coat and followed with a coat of quick dry matte top coat to take down that shine and voila!


All Products Used
ASP Long Wear Nail Polish - Not Again*
Dimension Nails - Black Rhino*
What's Up Nails - Neither Noire
Suncoat Water Based Top Coat
QUO Flash Dry Matte Top Coat
Born Pretty Store L099 Stamping Plate
What's Up Nails Magnified Clear Stamper
NailStuff.ca Liner Brush*
(Use affiliate code TRYSH for 10% off at NailStuff.ca)


Like I said at the beginning, I do definitely think that the idea of sophistication is really subjective, but I'm also really happy with what I came up with when I challenged myself like this. I think that in the context of sophisticated Halloween nail art, this type of design hit the marks that I was hoping to hit. Also, could it be any different from the cacophonous Lisa Frank vibes of my last mani? Me thinks not!

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you'll continue to check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday all month to see all of my 12 Nails Of Halloween for 2020. If you're looking for more inspiration, I'd also encourage you to check out last year's 12NOH Round Up as well!



You May Also Like

0 comments