79 Ideas for Halloween Nails That Are Scary-Good

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Ideas for Halloween

Zombies and spiderwebs and ghosts, oh my! This creepy and cute nail art is so creative, your manicure can serve as your costume.

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Color-Changing Paint Drips

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Holographic Blood Drip Tips

 If you like the idea of Halloween with all its blood and gore more than the actual thing, then we introduce to you your perfect manicure: the holographic blood drip tips. 

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Holographic Blood Drip Tips

Vanity Projects Miami nail salon took the effect of blood drip nails and combined them with the French tip and holographic powder effect. In short: we’re in love.

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Chic Blood Drips

California-based creator Lauren just proved to us that blood drips can make one heck of a stylish manicure.

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Chic Blood Drips

She combined a milky pink base with an accent nail featuring delicately placed blood drips, which make it a Halloween-themed manicure without going OTT if that isn’t your vibe. It’s simply but hugely effective.

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Tortoiseshell Ghost

Who’d have thought the tortoiseshell nail art would work so well with a ghost design? Not us, but we’re glad Milli of Hard As Nails Studio did because this design is adorable.

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Tortoiseshell Ghost

Combining the chic backdrop of a tortoiseshell-inspired print with a cartoon ghost, this is one of people who aren’t a fan of gore during the Halloween season but still want to get involved.

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Tiny Skeleton Bones

This requires some patience and a steady hand, first starting with a jet black base shade, then moving onto carefully placing the bones in a white hue. If you aren’t a keen DIY nail artist, take this inspiration to the salon with you.

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Spooky French Tips

We honestly didn’t know a themed Halloween manicure could get as chic as this one created by digital creator Melanie.  This is definitely a design to try at home, because instead of having to painstakingly hand paint these characters, you simply stick them on.

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Spooky Bones Lettering

Ring in the spooky season with a handful of bones — literally!  Unless you’ve got the patience of a saint, this is one to take to your nail tech for inspiration.

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Smoky Sky

For this set, grab various shades of blue and green and swirl them together on a palette, then pick them up using a nail art brush and gently guide them onto the nail and it should create this smoky effect. 

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Smoky Sky

Next up, using a detail brush, add on some stars and moons.  Finally, finish it off with a matte-effect top coat and you’ll have this dazzling set.

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Slime and Stripes

If you want to partake in the spooky season festivities without it being completely obvious, take this design as inspiration.  The matte black hues, monochrome stripes and lime green slime scream Halloween, but only to those who are looking close enough.

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Negative Space French Tips

This is one you’ll definitely want to visit the salon for, ask for a reverse French tip with a clear free edge tip, a true black hue and some delicate black stars to embellish the set.

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Nightmare Before Christmas Pink Edition

When your Halloween manicure looks this good (and incredibly detailed), it becomes a costume party winner all of its own accord.

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Nightmare Before Christmas Pink Edition

If you’re not feeling the patience to sit for a full set, why not take inspiration from Vivian’s design by choosing one or two accent nails? That way, you’ve got the magic of the scene without the commitment of a full set.

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@thenaildetails

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Pumpkin French Tips

Bet you never thought you could love pumpkins on a set of nails so much? These are simply adorable and we want them painted on our nails right away.  To try this design at home, start with a neutral-toned base and then choose five other autumnal hues that will form your pumpkin.

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Pumpkin French Tips

Begin creating a rounded tip (where your classic French tip would go) with those shades, making sure to create a small indent to form that pumpkin shape.  Then, using a detailing brush, go in with a black shade and outline those pumpkins, adding personality with stalks.

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Negative Space Slime

If you’re not ready to try a full set of nails, negative space is a great way to hop on the Halloween nail art train.  Simply choose your favorite spooky season-themed designs and ask your nail artist (or try at home!)

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Negative Space Slime

to paint these onto a clear base coat.Go as literal or abstract as you want! Finish off with a super shiny top coat or a matte top coat for different effects.

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@chicaartistanails

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Matte Black Bats

Playing around with matte and shiny top coats on a black nail polish shade is a super cool way to spook-ify a traditional Halloween character.

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Matte Black and White Ghosts

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Jelly Spiderweb

 If you’ve got a steady hand and a jelly nail polish, this is one you might want to try your hand at recreating at home.

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Itsy Bitsy Spiders

We’ve seen so many versions of the classic French manicure but we’ve never seen a cobweb French manicure before, and it makes a perfect Halloween design.

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Itsy Bitsy Spiders

Ask your nail tech to swap out the regular French tip for a spiderweb design, then add on some teeny spiders and finish off with a matte top coat.

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Hand Painted Halloween Figures

When steel blue tips become Halloween artwork!  You’ll definitely need to visit a specialist nail artist in hand painting if you’re inspired to take this photo to a salon. Who said French tips are boring?  Certainly not us.

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Chrome Green Wet-Look Nails

Proving that not all epic Halloween manicures need to be intricate to be incredible, sometimes you just need a long canvas to work on, an epic chrome power, and some super realistic water droplets.

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Gudetama Pumpkin

Thought you couldn’t love Gudetama anymore?  This accent nail design combining Gudetama and a pumpkin is both the most intricate and adorable thing we’ve possibly ever seen.  This nail art is so good in fact, we’d be basing our entire costume around it.

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Glowing Stars

When spooky becomes glitter and galaxy and the outcome looks like this, we certainly wouldn’t be complaining. Noelle added a slightly more transparent white shade underneath the white star to create this glowing effect, proving that tiny details can make all the difference in nail art.

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Galaxy Nails

Whilst these aren’t traditional Halloween nails, they sure do deserve a spot on your inspiration list for the spooky season. Created by a sister-owned salon Hey Nice Nails, this manicure uses a reflective glitter gel placed in swirl patterns on half of each nail.

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Galaxy Nails

It’s finished off with teeny tiny metallic gold stars added to give the set a little extra magic. The best part? They light up in a completely different way with flash on, essentially giving you two nail designs in one!

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Futuristic Chrome

If you’re going futuristic with your costume this year, take inspiration from this silver chrome set. This season, don’t wear jewelry, be the jewelry.

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Comme Des Garçons Devils

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Comme Des Garçons Devils

Taking inspiration from Comme Des Garçons with a French manicure and adding a Halloween twist, she combined three trends in one. 

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Comme Des Garçons Devils

The result? A cute, spooky-themed French manicure that will surely get people's attention.

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Spookily Cute Characters

We challenge you to find a cuter set of spooky characters than this manicure! This manicure has it all: pastel shades, watermarble, sweet characters, a black cat, and an itsy bitsy spider.

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Spookily Cute Characters

Starting with a neon yellow base and carefully hand painting each of the movie’s characters, complete with the film’s lettering and topped off with a matte topcoat so that every last bit of detail shows through.

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Spookily Cute Characters

Starting with a neon yellow base and carefully hand painting each of the movie’s characters, complete with the film’s lettering and topped off with a matte topcoat so that every last bit of detail shows through.

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BOO! Lettering

Sometimes your manicure doesn’t have to look Halloween-esque, it can say it instead — literally!

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BOO! Lettering

If you want to try this design at home, consider getting nail stickers or decals so you can focus on your message rather than mastering intricate lettering.  Top off with a matte top coat so that the letters stand out even more.

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Cat Eye Halloween Scene

We cannot get enough of this velvet look with orange accents to create a night sky scene with tiny bats and stars for a magical Halloween look.

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Glow-in-the-Dark Bat Splatter

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Spotty Sorcery

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Bloody Claws

The sheer pink base adds an "oops, I wasn't expecting to impale anyone with my mani today" innocence.

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Disco Ghosts

The Gel Bottle Inc's lavender Flax shade is coated in iridescent glitter for a look that combines glam with ghouls in the cutest of ways.

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Petrified Pastels

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Glitter Ombré

That soft shade extends through the rest of the manicure for a festive but not flagrant Halloween look.

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Black-and-White Bats

Look more closely, however, and you'll see that it's a scene — a bat flying against the clouds on a starry night.  When that happens in real life, it may seem a little scary, but on nails, it's truly lovely.

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Neon Necromancy

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Sparkly, Spooky Cuties

The silvery, shimmery, holographic base of these almond-shaped nails are topped off with adorable bat, ghost, and heart graphics — all with smiley faces — in black, orange, white, and green.

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Orange Ombré Spiderwebs

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Bony Beauties

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Ghoulish Galaxy

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Nightmare Before Christmas Nails

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Boo Nails

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Candy Corn and Spiderweb Nails

This super-simple Halloween-themed manicure only requires a few colors — plus, you don't need to be a pro at all to do it justice.

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Mismatched Halloween-Themed Designs

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Horror Movie Nails

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Corpse Bride Nails

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Green and Purple Oogie Boogie Nails

We love the purple and green polishes; the combo is a great go-to look for any fans of neon.

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Ouija Board Nails

How meta would it be if you used a Ouija board while wearing this Ouija board manicure?

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@rawrrgina

Frankenstein's French Tips

Arguably the easiest Halloween manicure to achieve at home, this design inspired by Frankenstein's monster only requires black and metallic-green nail polishes, a detailing brush, and a steady hand.

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Red, White, Black, and Scary AF

When recreating this specific look, you'll definitely want to have solid red, white, and black polishes on hand, as well as a tiny thin brush and a dotting tool for the details.

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Glow-in-the-Dark Pumpkins

So much yes to this spooky glow-in-the-dark look, which features all different pumpkin faces for an equal parts fun-and-creepy effect. "Just paint something with gel and sprinkle on some glow-in-the-dark pigment while it's sticky for a unique light-up look."

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"One Bite" Nails

This tribute to Snow White's evil Queen (and her poison apple) makes for a wicked Halloween mani.

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Cherry Skulls

Chances are, you've seen plenty of iterations of this French-tipped manicure featuring tiny cherry details.

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Duo-Chrome Bats and Birds

Crows and ominous trees don't appear in Halloween manicures nearly as often as they ought to. She doesn't say whether she did the designs freehand or used stickers, but if you're a beginner, it can't hurt to use some spooky press-ons or nail wraps.

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Glowing-in-the-Dark Ghost Nails

This glow-in-the-dark ghost look is cuter than it is scary. You could use the aforementioned glow pigment to get this look — or find some fun glowing ghost stickers for a similar feel. 

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Glowing-in-the-Dark Ghost Nails

Simply place the stickers on top of whatever black polish you have in your collection and you'll be good to go.

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Creepy Creatures

"These are the ultimate eerie Halloween nails," says Flordia-based nail artist, Sophia Fraccalvieri.  "I used Nailz by Dev's Hella Cute Liner Brush to help me create the best crisp linework every time. " For the full effect, try filing your nails into this pointy triangular shape.

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Creepy Creatures

"These are the ultimate eerie Halloween nails," says Flordia-based nail artist, Sophia Fraccalvieri.  "I used Nailz by Dev's Hella Cute Liner Brush to help me create the best crisp linework every time. " For the full effect, try filing your nails into this pointy triangular shape.

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Breathing Fire and Freaky Eye Nail Art

Both creepy and really cool, this look  features red and yellow, dragon fire-like designs, as well as abstract white and black drawings of eyes and a witchy-esque hand with long nails.

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Red Rum Nails

For this look inspired by the famous '80s horror flick, The Shining, Fraccalvieri used Vetro's Black Gel Polish, which is her go-to for any type of nail art. "It made creating these spooky Halloween stilettos so easy," she says.

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Orange and Black Halloween Nails

Instagram user opts for a less literal take on the Halloween manicure trend by offsetting this black-and-white checkerboard pattern with one bright-orange accent nail. Pumpkins might feel overdone by the end of fall, but this use of pumpkin orange works any time of year.

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Zombie-esque Nails

There are few moments in horror movies more chilling than when the hands of the undead start emerging from the ground.

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Pastel Pink Nails with Black and White Designs

Give any spooky nail design a dainty twist by using a pastel base shade like the pink seen here.

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Happy Ghost Nails

Sure, ghosts are a frequently used subject for Halloween-themed manicures

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Bloody Vampire Nails

You know that horrific scene in IT when Beverly gets a visit from Pennywise in her bathroom? This is that scene in nail-art form.

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@ayanexbeauty

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Blood Drip Nails

Kylie Jenner brought the dripping nail-art trend to life last year, and this take finfuses Halloween spirit into it with blood-red accents on a white base.

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Orange Glitter Nails

These talons are made with hand-sculpted acrylic, which she infused with a chunky orange glitter base. If you'll look closely, you'll see a few teeny ghost- and bat-shaped glitters pieces in there, too.

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Friday the 13th Nails

Those who need something quicker and easier can opt for a basic manicure with an accent nail, like this one created as a reference to Jason from Friday the 13th Though all those dots and lines look hard to pull off, all they require for at-home application is one thin nail-art brush and one dotting tool.

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Shimmery Spiderweb Nails

French-tipped manicures have been trending for all, so why not combine their forces with another popular Halloween motif, spiderwebs, for something that's equally eerie and trendy?

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Black Cat and Spiderweb Nails

The bright oranges, purples, and greens traditionally associated with Halloween might be too lively for goths at heart.

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@blackheart_nails

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Orange and Black Spiderweb Nails

"Paint a random assortment of dots with a smaller dot and slightly larger dot connected, which will be the body of your spider." See? It couldn't be more simple.

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Skeleton-Themed Nail Art

Turn your nails into an x-ray illusion with this brilliant idea. Everyone will be pointing out how cool your manicure is.

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Everything All At Once

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Itty-Bitty Eyeball Nails

Eyes as part of someone's face? Pretty. Eyeballs anywhere else? Pretty creepy — but also kinda cute in the case of this manicure.

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Orange and Black Marble Nails

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Blood Splatter Nails

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@filedandflynails

Freddy Krueger Nails

Why wear a glove to convey Freddy Krueger's infamous blades when you can just make them a part of your manicure?  Walker captured the horror-movie villain's weapon of choice with extra-long stiletto nails and gave a nod to his signature striped sweater on the thumbnail.

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Green Slime Nails

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Metallic Skull Nails

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Spiderweb Ombré Nails

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@jasminenoble_nails

Moon Phase Nails

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