Halloween Nails: 13 Halloween Nail Designs, from Simple to Spooky

Halloween nails can be as subtle as a fine black French tip or as playful as a ghost face on every nail. The most wearable designs use dark autumn shades such as black, wine red and terracotta, and keep the nail art to one or two nails.

The 13 Halloween nail designs below range from office-friendly ideas to spider webs, ghosts and bats. We also explain how to paint the art in gel and which designs suit short nails.

Classy and simple Halloween nails

Classy Halloween nails rely on dark colour and a high shine, with little or no drawing. That restraint means most of these eight ideas will still work in November.

1. Black French tip nails

A narrow black tip over a milky base hints at Halloween without a single motif. Apply two thin coats of 021 Cloud, curing each one, then paint the tip in 001 Black with a long liner brush and cap the free edge. Work from each side towards the centre to keep the smile line even, and on the curves, hold the brush still and turn your finger.

2. Glossy black nails

Glossy black is the most obvious Halloween manicure and the least forgiving, since every flooded edge shows. Build it in two thin coats, curing each one; the first usually streaks, and one thick coat can wrinkle and stay soft underneath. Leave a hairline gap at the cuticle and wipe any gel off the skin before curing, as uncured gel on skin is the main cause of gel allergy. Give one ring finger a design from the next section, then seal every nail with Diamond Top Coat for a mirror finish.

On long or weak nails, the black builder gel B024 Noir Épi adds strength. It has to be filed off, so it suits a set you'll keep through autumn with infills.

3. Blood red Halloween nails

Red Halloween nails work best in a wine shade, which reads as blood by candlelight, whereas bright scarlet feels closer to Christmas. The deep bordeaux builder gel B014 Amarante colours and strengthens the nail in one step. For shimmer, the red cat eye 003 Ruby Dusk adds a beam of light, and our burgundy nail ideas show more ways to wear dark red.

4. Black cat eye nails

Cat eye gel polish adds light to a black manicure without any drawing, and 007 Cosmic Shadow pairs a black base with a silver beam. Cure a thin first coat, then apply a second and hold the magnet just above the nail for a few seconds. Cure straight away, one nail at a time, before the beam starts to blur. A diagonal beam flatters wide nail beds, and our cat eye nails guide covers the other magnet techniques.

5. Midnight purple nails

Purple is a traditional Halloween colour too, and a midnight shade suits anyone who finds black too harsh. A deep purple such as 108 Pacific is at its best with cool undertones and silver jewellery. Like black, it shows every ridge, so level the nail first with a rubber base, which fills small dips.

6. Pumpkin nails in burnt orange and terracotta

Bright pumpkin orange can feel like fancy dress on adult hands, while burnt orange and terracotta give a subtler nod to the season. A warm terracotta brown such as 078 Clay suits warm undertones and gold jewellery, and our brown nail ideas go further into earthy shades. For a jack-o'-lantern thumb, outline two triangle eyes and a zigzag grin in black with a detail brush, then fill them in.

7. Dark chrome and silver nails

Silver chrome powder over black gives a gunmetal mirror finish for evening parties. Apply two thin coats of black and a layer of no-wipe Diamond Top Coat, curing each one. Rub the powder in with a silicone applicator and brush off the excess. Seal with another layer of top coat and cure, capping the free edge, where chrome tends to chip first. If you wear builder gel, a powder-free option is the metallic silver B033 Argent Sterling on the ring fingers, with Noir Épi on the rest.

8. A Halloween accent nail for the office

If your job calls for neutral nails, keep Halloween to one small detail. Paint all ten nails in Cloud or a nude, then give one ring finger a small black bat or a quarter spider web. It stays discreet across a meeting table, and after 31 October you only need to redo that one nail.

Halloween nail art ideas

These designs need a steady hand, a couple of fine brushes and a dotting tool. If you're new to nail art, practise on a spare nail tip first and start with one or two art nails per hand.

9. Spider web nails

Spider web nails are the best-known Halloween nail art and easier than they seem, since a real web is never perfectly regular. Draw the lines in black over a milky or nude base. For the reverse, paint two accent nails black in an otherwise nude set and draw a web on one of them in opaque silver or white gel polish. Builder gel such as Argent Sterling is too thick for lines. A web fanning out from one corner is more refined than a full one.

10. Ghost nails

Ghost nails turn the whole nail into a face, which makes them one of the quickest designs here and ideal for short nails. The expression depends on the shapes you dot on: round eyes read as cute, tall ovals as surprised and a wide open mouth as a scream. For a more grown-up set, put ghosts on two nails and paint the rest glossy black.

11. Bat nails

Keep bats tiny: three silhouettes of different sizes, flying diagonally across a pale nail, have more movement than one large bat. Start with a black dot for the body. For each wing, draw a short arc outwards and come back along the underside in two or three scallops, then fill it in. Two little points make the ears. Over Clay, black bats give a muted take on black and orange.

12. Moon and stars nails

This negative-space design leaves most of the nail bare, so it grows out almost invisibly. Over a clear base, draw a slim black crescent moon near the tip, then add three or four stars as dots or little crosses. For a night sky, paint the nail in Pacific around a bare crescent near the cuticle, outlining the crescent with the liner brush first.

13. Blood drip nails

For scary Halloween nails, paint blood drips in a deep red gel polish over a pale base such as Cloud. Start with a band of red along the cuticle end, keeping a hairline gap from the skin, and pull drips of different lengths towards the tip. Finish each drip with a small bead from a dotting tool, cure, then seal with Diamond Top Coat so the red looks wet. Drips need room to fall, so the design suits medium and long nails best.

How to do Halloween nail art with gel

Push back the cuticles, remove any cuticle from the nail plate and lightly buff away the shine. Cleanse and dehydrate the nail, with an acid-free primer if it's oily or prone to lifting. Apply a thin base and build the colour in thin coats, curing each layer under a UV/LED lamp for the time in your gel's instructions. The art goes on the cured colour, before the top coat.

• A long liner brush. It draws a web thread or a French tip in one stroke.
• A short detail brush. It gives more control for small filled shapes, such as bats.
• A dotting tool. Use it for ghost eyes, spider bodies, stars and the beads on blood drips.

Work from a drop of gel on foil and take very little on the brush, since an overloaded brush floods the line before you can cure it. Cure after each stage so finished lines can't smudge. If a line goes wrong, lift it off with a clean flat brush before curing. When you seal, cover every line completely, as exposed art wears off first.

How to draw spider web nails

1. Over your cured base, apply two thin coats of Cloud or a nude, curing each one.
2. With the liner brush and black gel polish, draw three or four straight lines fanning out from one corner of the nail. Cure.
3. Join neighbouring lines with short curved strokes that dip slightly towards the corner, in two or three rows. Cure.
4. For a spider, hang a fine thread from the web, then add two dots for the body and head and four short legs on each side. Cure.
5. Seal with Diamond Top Coat, capping the free edge, and cure.

How to paint ghost nails

1. Over your cured base, apply two or three thin coats of Cloud, curing each one, until the white is as milky as you want.
2. With the smaller end of a dotting tool and black gel polish, place two eyes in the middle of the nail.
3. Add the mouth just below them, towards the cuticle: a dot, an oval or a short wavy line. Cure.
4. Seal with Diamond Top Coat, capping the free edge, and cure.

Short Halloween nails

Almost every design here works on short Halloween nails if you scale it down. Stick to one motif per nail, such as a ghost face, a corner web or a single bat near the tip. On a French, keep the black tip to a millimetre or two, because a wide band makes short nails seem shorter. A cat eye with a vertical beam does the opposite and makes them seem longer.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most popular Halloween nails?

Black nails, spider webs, ghosts and pumpkin shades are the Halloween nail ideas you'll see most often, along with blood red and black cat eye. Many of them need only two gel polishes, a black and a milky white.

When should you do Halloween nails?

Paint them a few days to a week before 31 October, so they're fresh for weekend parties and still intact on the night. A gel manicure usually lasts two to three weeks. To wear yours into November, keep the Halloween art to one or two nails and redo just those afterwards.

How do you do Halloween nails at home?

Prep the nail, apply a thin base and colour in thin coats, and cure each layer under a UV/LED lamp. Paint the art with a liner brush and a dotting tool, curing each detail, then seal with a top coat.

What nail colour is best for October?

The best October colours are deep ones: burgundy, chocolate brown, terracotta, forest green, midnight purple and black. Our autumn nails guide covers this season's colours and trends.

What are simple Halloween nails for beginners?

The simplest Halloween nails need no drawing: one glossy dark shade or a black cat eye, which only needs a magnet. Ghost faces come next, as a dotting tool does the work, followed by a black French tip. Spider webs and bats take more practice.

For your own Halloween set, start with our gel polish and cat eye collections, adding a builder gel if your nails need strength.