Halloween Nail Challenge – October 01: Horror Movies

Nail challenges look really fun, though I’ve never had the time to actually try one out. I saw this Halloween Nail Challenge on Pretty and Polish and since it’s much shorter than the 31+ day long challenges, I thought that this would be a great way to get into challenges. Also, who doesn’t like Halloween? 😛

Over the next month, I’ll be posting nail art for the challenge. Hopefully, I can be consistent and try and post on each of the listed days. Otherwise, I could be a day late. Below is an overview of the challenge and the theme for each of the days.

It’s a day late, but the nail theme for yesterday, October 1st is “Horror Movies.” The first thing that popped up in my mind was a blood splatter. When I thought of that, first movie I thought of were the Saw movies. Below is the summary posted on IMDb’s site for the 1st movie, which was released in 2004:

“With a dead body laying between them, two men wake up in the secure lair of a serial killer who’s been nicknamed “Jigsaw”. The men must follow various rules and objectives if they wish to survive and win the deadly game set for them.”

Blood! So much blood everywhere! :O Initially, I wanted to just used two colors, then I decided to up it to three with an accent nail. Once I did the blood, I ended up adding silver to the mix to make it 4 colors. Below are the colors that I used for this manicure.

Left to Right: Plastic Coffee Stirrer, Sally Hansen Black Out, Sally Hansen White Tip, Sally Hansen Brick Wall
Not pictured: Zoya Trixie, So Easy Stripe Rite – Red & Black, toothpick

This was a relatively simple manicure to do. Most of my nails were painted with Sally Hansen Black Out, while my accent nails were painted with Sally Hansen White Tip. For the blood itself, I used Sally Hansen Brick Wall. I thought about using Zoya America for the blood, but I ended up choosing Brick Wall, as it’s a darker red and looks more blood-like. I used three layers of Black Out on the majority of my nails and on the accent nails, I used two layers of White Tip.

October 1st: Horror Movies
Movie chosen: Saw
Image: natural light, indoors, no flash

To make the blood splatter I used a coffee stirrer. I dipped the straw into a drop of paint that I blew the straw onto my nails. Depending on how fast I blew and the amount of nail polish on the straw, it would affect how much the paint would splatter. This is a very messy technique, so I’d suggest putting a sheet of newspaper down to keep the paint from getting everywhere. Also, I’d recommend that you’d also either place tape around your nails or use Aquaphor (or petroleum jelly) to help keep clean up to a minimum.

Image: Indoors, flash, diffused flash
When I took this picture, the tissue paper that I had taped in front of my flash got partially loose, which is why the flash is concentrated in the middle.

The blood drove me nuts as every time I initially tried to get it to work, no nail polish got onto to my nails. I took a break from finishing the mani and I tried again today. I had some more trial and error, I finally got it to work. Besides using a lil more polish, I also found that cutting the coffee stirrer shorter helped to make it easier. After doing the blood, I decided to add a shackle with chain to represent the chain that the two main characters to chained to in the bathroom they were trapped in.

Image: Indoors, diffused flash

I used Zoya Trixie for the chain and shackle. Once I did that, I used black to outline the shackle to make it look more like the actual thing and red to add for some finishing touches. Overall, I love how the end result came out, despite the frustration I had getting the splatter effect working. The only improvement if I were to try this again would be to perhaps use a brighter red, as I noticed that Brick Wall didn’t show up on the black that well. Another option would be to have a white base on all of the nails instead of the black base.

Image: indoors, diffused flash
This one shows a close up of the shackle on my thumb.