40 Nail Art Ideas – Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! Today I've got a fun skittle look I've been rocking all week and boy do I just love how happy and fun this look is!



I went on Pinterest and picked my favorite of all the Halloween mani tutorials out there and combined them to create this look, with holo bases of course (holo ALL the things).



So I freehanded most of this, except for the witch stamp and jack-o-lantern face, both were from Winstonia W116 plate and stamped using my favorite black stamping polish B Polished Midnight in Death Valley. In fact all the black in this mani, including the freehand, is with this awesome polish. And an extra note for you, B Polished is having a sale right now, check out my last post for details.



So for the bases I used a bunch of fun holo polishes which I'll tell you about here. The thumb is a base of Smitten Polish Cauldron Bubble, with the moon freehanded with Literary Lacquers Curious Yellow*. The index finger base is Smitten Polish Oh the Hue-Manatee* and white stripes are freehand with KBShimmer Eyes White Open, the eyes are Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Universal Loner. The middle finger is a base of Smitten Polish Poach-Busters* (LE this month, so grab it while you can!). The ring finger is a base of Elevation Polish Aconcagua. The pinky finger is a base of ILNP Paper Route, a lovely almost white holo, perfect for the skull.

*denotes press samples





I really loved these nails, they were just different enough for me not to get bored and rock all week long! This is the most effort I put into Halloween this year for sure. We have a potluck at work today and I tried a Pinterest recipe that I think I kind of failed at but oh well. Oh and I had to show you the right hand attempt at this mani, just to keep it real and show you that not all nail art is easy. My freehand still has a long way to go!



So what are you doing for Halloween? We are headed to a coworker's house for the holiday, she lives in this wealthy enclave of town that is like THE place for Halloween. So we are going to bask in the fun, see the decorations and help pass out candy to 800 plus trick-or-treaters! Should be fun! Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend!

Oh and don't forget to check out the other ladies of Crumpet's Nail Challenge, listed here in the inlinkz below. I'm sure they've come up with some truly creative and fun Halloween nails to browse!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Literary Lacquers Vurt-U-Want Collection Review

Happy Hump Day everyone, today I've got a lovely collection from one of my very favorite brands Literary Lacquers.

*Press Sample*

The most awesome thing about this brand is it combines two things I love dearly, reading and nail polish. Literary Lacquers based this particular collection on Vurt by Jeff Noon, a 1990s classic cyber-hallucinogenic novel. This novel is set in an alternate version of Manchester, England, in which society has been shaped by Vurt, a hallucinogenic drug/shared alternate reality, accessed by sucking on colour-coded feathers. Not really my genre of literature, but I am super excited to show you how it inspired Amy of Literary Lacquers for the Vurt-U-Want Collection, available now!

This lovely glitter is Literary Lacquers Shadow Girl. This is a lovely grey-tinged blue matte polish with various sized, colored and shaped glitter. Glitter polishes aren't typically my jam, but the matte finish of this makes it so lovely. I applied two coats for this opacity and it didn't drag at all. It also wasn't a problem at all getting a mix of the glitter pieces to apply.

I was surprised by this polish, like I said glitter isn't usually my thing, and I didn't think matte polishes were either. But WOW, this polish was amazing and the matte finish made it dry in record time. I totally recommend this as an awesome on the go polish, as it dries super fast but it also is so complex and dimensional it is truly unique in my collection. I'll add one additional swatch which shows how beautiful the polish is with top coat as well. 

For this photo I applied top coat to Shadowgirl on all fingers except the middle to show the contrast. This polish is stunning with and without top coat!

This is Literary Lacquers Curious Yellow. This is a gorgeous golden sunflower yellow made up of the most gorgeous flakies and super fine scattered holographic pieces. I applied three coats for this opacity, shorter nails might get away with two coats, but I had a case of the pesky visible nail line. 

The polish dries matte, which was a lovely surprise. I really liked the matte finish, though it did hide the scattered holo pieces a bit. You'll see it with a shiny top coat in a second, when I top it with the glitter topper of the collection (and when I use it for nail art at the end of this post).







Which brings me to Literary Lacquers English Voodoo. This is a glitter topper with all sorts of glittery goodness to look at! Now I wouldn't exactly pair yellow and pink together, but it totally works!

This polish has large pink holographic hexes and smaller pink hexes. It has medium sized black and yellow hexes and triangle black glitter pieces as well. I layered two coats over Curious Yellow, and on the accent nail (so the yellow hexes wouldn't get hidden) I layered two coats over Literary Lacquers Attic Mice. The glitter was pretty easy to distribute. A good shake before distribution and I didn't really have trouble getting any of the glitter on the nail. As glitter can be a little bumpy once dry, this might require more than one layer of top coat.







This lovely stunner is Literary Lacquers Blue Lullaby. This is one finish that Literary Lacquers just absolutely perfects - a scattered holo with matching mirco glitters. And this one has two different sized micro glitters, small and just a little bit larger only adding to how much bling is in the polish.

The polish applied flawlessly, not too thick or thin. Two coats for full coverage, I added a third for ultimate bling! When I saw this polish I knew I wanted to use it for a Fourth of July mani, so expect to see this again soon! This is the perfect cerulean blue holo polish with so much lovely bling!







And this is the namesake of the collection, this is Literary Lacquers Vurt-U-Want. This is a bright almost neon pink holo polish that is very similar in the finish of Blue Lullaby. It looks like it has hex and square microglitter as well as some medium hex as well.

The application was similar to Blue Lullaby, opaque in two coats, I added a third for ultimate brightness.



I had a similar Literary Lacquers from the February Addicted to Holos Box called Laughs in Flowers so I thought it might be helpful to see them side by side. Vurt-U-Want is clearly a brighter more neon pink than the bubble gum pink of Laughs in Flowers. Vurt-U-Want is on the right and Laughs in Flowers is on the left.







This is Literary Lacquers Thermofish. A gorgeous green leaning teal holo polish with similar microglitter finish as Vurt-U-Want and Blue Lullaby. This is two coats. This finish is totally the best, I can't say enough good things about it – linear holo with scattered microglitters! Ultimate sparkle!



And since teal is one of my most favorite colors, I had to compare this one side by side with my similar Literary Lacquers – Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and Je Reviens. Thermofish is in the middle with Je Reviens on the left and Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster on the right. From what I can tell PGGB is a more blue toned teal that is brighter and has finer micro glitter pieces that reflect more blue. Je Reviens is clearly darker, but I thought it would be helpful to see them side by side.







This is Literary Lacquers Dreamsnake. This is a lovely delicate violet holo polish with the most lovely green and blue iridescent flakies which pop in indirect lighting! I used three coats for opacity and the formula was not too thick or too thin, just great to work with.



Once again I thought it might be helpful to see this side by side with a similar Literary Lacquer, so this is Dreamsnake (right) shown next to Megatron. As you can tell, they are both similar shades of violet, but their similarities end after that. Megatron seems to have a golden glow and a finish similar to Thermofish, while Dreamsnake has it's own special flakie glow.







This is Literary Lacquers Bottletown and it is a stunner. This is a lovely almost Kelly green with the most magical rainbow iridescent flakies hidden underneath its holo finish. I used three coats for this opacity and the formula was very similar to Dreamsnake, a pleasure to work with.

And as I promised, I did use two of these in a super fun nail art look!



I created this super fun look in honor of the Golden State Warriors, who as I am typing this just won the NBA Championship! I totally think my nails helped seal the deal, don't you think?!? ;-) But in all seriousness, I don't really claim to be a basketball fan, I just jumped on the bandwagon because it's fun!

For this look I used Blue Lullaby and Curious Yellow and did fun polka dots using my dotting tool. For the center nail I used Zoya Arizona and a nail art brush to paint on the fun basketball lines. Yay for sports nails!

This collection is available at the Literary Lacquers Etsy Shop now and the polishes are priced from $10-$12 for 15ml bottles. There is not a single polish in here I didn't love, and it is all so varied. If I had to pick a favorite, I think it would be a tie between Thermofish (because TEAL) and Bottletown because it is truly a stunning unique polish in my collection!

So I'm dying to know, which polishes in this collection are your favorite?! Have you picked any up yet? There are so many different finishes in this collection, something for everyone!