Tutorial Tuesday: Blood Drip Nails (Perfect for Halloween!)

This week's tutorial is for Blood Drip nails.

I wanted to do something simple yet spooky so you can try it out for Halloween.

These nails are popping up everywhere, and I can see why!  They are the perfect combination of scary & sexy.

I've seen them done dripping down from the cuticle or dripping from the tip of the nail.

I chose to do it dripping from the tip of the nails so it looks like I just clawed someone :)

How To Choose Colors For This Design:

I've seen this commonly done with clear coat as the base color and only using red polish, but I chose to use a neutral base color.  Either way, it looks great.

Suggested Materials:

ANY brand is fine, listed below are the ones used for this particular mani

- Base coat - Seche Clear

- Top coat - Seche Vite

- Base color - Essie "Sand Tropez"

- Any brand of red nail art striping brush - I used red acrylic paint & striping brush
- Nail dotting tool (optional)

- A clean, small paintbrush or cotton swabs, for cleaning the cuticles afterwards (optional)

- Nail polish remover (optional)

Before You Begin Painting Your Design:

These steps are optional, but definitely recommended!

- Put down some paper towels in your work area, in case of any spills.

- Be sure to remove any old nail polish.

- Gently file nails into desired shape and remove any ridges with a buffer.

- Push back cuticles with a cuticle pusher or orange wood stick and trim if desired.

- Apply a base coat to protect from potential staining from color polish; wait for it to dry completely.

 Step 1:

Apply 2 coats of base color and allow to dry.

 Step 2:
You have a few options here.
You can either use a nail dotting tool, the edge of a regular polish brush or a nail striping brush.
Using any of these methods, make a few large dots across the top half of your nail.
Varying sizes works best!

 Step 3:
Using the nail art striping brush, begin to round out your dots and pull them towards the end of the nail, making an elongated teardrop shape.
Try to keep these lines fairly thin if you can.

 Step 4:
If you are comfortable enough working with the nail art striping brush, you can make smaller teardrops in between the larger ones.
If you're not great at using the striping brush, you can skip this step :)

 Step 5:
Using the nail art striping brush, begin to connect the elongated lines of the teardrop shapes.
I did this by making a U shape that connected from line to line.

Step 6:
 Fill in the rest of the tip of the nail with red.

Step 7: (Forgot to take a picture!)

This final step is completely optional, but it will really help to achieve a neat & clean looking mani.

You can use either a small paintbrush or cotton swab, dip it in nail polish remover, and use it to remove any excess polish on your cuticles and skin.

Be careful not to use too much remover, otherwise you will risk ruining your design.

Finish off with your favorite top coat and you're done!

For all past Tutorials click here!