Frankenstein French nails tutorial

Welcome back to another tutorial on October, so let's get a bit scary with it. And what's more scary than perfecting a French tip? So today I will give you a nail art that will help camouflage your mistakes doing so while being seasonally appropriate:

So we're going to do a French nail but we're doing more things on top to hide any imperfection. It's a crutch, but we're taking it. I used these polishes for this, but you can do so many variations of this:

 I went with my Holo Tacos to get some warm greens and go for this zombie skin:

• Holo Taco's Not Pressed
• Holo Taco's Modest Moss
• Holo Taco's One Coat Black
• Holo Taco's World's First

What I recommend is using opaque polishes. You really don't want to glop it on, that's why I went with these, I trust their opacity for my nails. I'll show you how I did this. It's really easy! I started with building my base shade to opacity. One coat was almost there but I could see in bright light a tiny smidge of unevenness, so two coats it is:

Hear me out, freehand your French nail. Go for it. We're going to add more on top, it's fine if it's not perfect, and you will build some confidence. You can use nail art brushes, I went with the bottle brush because I'm crazy and should not be doing tutorials. I'm going to nail art jail.

You can totally see that my french is way far from perfect. It's kinda not bad, but not at a level I would feel comfortable leaving it on its own. That's fine! One of the best and worst things in life is that nobody looks at your nails as close as you do. If I was doing just the french tip, I'd probably use a nail vinyl or other technique that helps me make it perfect, I'm not a nail tech and I don't use gel either. Okay, here's where the trickery starts to build up: Black line. That's it. Congratulations. Do a line separating both colours. I didn't use a striping brush because my control with them is not great for curved nails, so I picked something a bit inbetween, long bristles, but not that long.

 

Wait to apply a top coat. You want a quick dry one. But really, specially with pigmented colours like black, wait a good chunk and float your top coat. After that, and counting that I was going to use the chrome World's First, that does not require top coat, I decided that the contrast would be striking against matte. So, yes, even if you want them matte, wait, apply a quick dry top coat floated to avoid smearing and then a matte top coat:

 

Up until here, with the colours of your choosing, you can do this design any time of the year. But it's October, so do you want to make this design into Halloween? Add some stitches to this line with silver! That's what I did and it turned out... recognizable!

 

I told you it was simple to understand and I wasn't lying, go there and paint your nails however you can! And if it's not the results you wanted, play around and hide your mistakes! I am wearing as I posted this the same manicure on my hands, and I think it turned out effective, I like it at least! I will see if I regret this when I remove it, because Not Pressed is known as a stainer, it already stained me, and this time I'm wearing two coats of base coat to see if that can help me. If not, oh well, I guess I won't play with jellies in a while!

 

With the flash, the contrast between the shiny silver and everything else is way more pronounced, and I think I like it!

So yeah, not too much to add, I think this is the last scary tutorial, as next Sunday would be November already, and it would be already out of season? But I may do it as a treat. Who knows? Tell me all your thoughts about it and about these nails! 

What I wore on September 2025?

What a month, my September was. The end of it was so eventful that I could not just sit down to write this post last week, as intended. It was still quite hot, so my nail art mood was not there, but I did my best to still do something on the nails.

On September 4th I wanted to do something featuring Essie's This and That, so I painted my nails that shade and decided to pull the old reliable, black crackle polish. I used Essence's Cracking magic nail. The twist is that I carefully left my free edge free of crackle nail polish, which in terms, I didn't adore because in my opinion, it left my nail looking shorter:

Apart from that issue I mentioned, I am quite happy with this, but, nail polish companies, let's make crackle nail polish a trend again. In different colours. Please I beg on my knees. At least, white, I guess. I just need more of this.

My manicure started chipping so I changed it on September 9th, wanting to play with a nail polish I diluted myself to make a jelly, and a topper, in a jelly sandwich. The topper is one you've seen in a previous tutorial, it's the white glitter from that Duo polish I own. It was thick. It was sadly too thick and made it look weird.
 

Sadly, I have very few product left, as the topper was in a 3 mL bottle. I swear, the audacity of companies, it's not even a mini, it's a micro!

I got absurdly bored of this manicure so when it chipped just once I decided to change it. That was September 15th. I just sit down on my nail chair, which is my desk chair, my computer chair, my streaming chair and my everything chair, opened the drawer and said, no plan, let's go, I will have to change it in four days anyways. I wanted to go out of my comfort zone so I jokingly said that I would do animal print like a gyaru. I did animal print. Well, more like, I tried to do it. I wasn't in the mood for leopard, but zebra? Honestly I thought I could do it, but... judge yourself: 

I used very inexpensive polishes from Wild & Young, which retail for 1,50€ or 1€, I can't even remember. I used Nº537 as the base, from the Into The Party collection, and used Nº416 from the Moon collection as my gold. I run into some issues: first of all, the brush I used was... not ideal. I think it was more frayed than I admitted to myself back at the time and refused to change it. Also, the quality of the polishes are great but some of them are not as opaque and require one more coat than another 10€ options. That happened to the gold, so to achieve opacity I had to use too much, make my lines thick, and basically risking messing up way more. Which happened. Honestly looking back at this, it looks almost like a fantasy birch.

And why did I have to change my nails, you say? Because I was invited to another wedding this year! What a concept! I did my nails the night of September 19th to go there on September 20th. I wanted to do something slightly different from my bestie's wedding nails, but I was wearing mint too, so I didn't have much leeway:

 

I decided to play rebel and, hear me out, start with Holo Taco's Mint Mojito, a linear holographic polish, use Holo Taco's Mint Money, their frosted metal, as a topper, and that turned out beautifully. But I went maximalist, so I added a coat of Holo Taco's Everything Taco and Holo Taco's Reflective Taco. Did someone see the reflective glitters? No. I knew they were there. And the nails got complimented so I didn't do that bad. 

I wanted to keep this nails for a long time, so until the end of the month, but on September 26th I hit my hand and it was painful enough to warrant me to take off the manicure and assess the situation. I honestly though I broke two nails, and my computer also broke a couple days prior. It was painful, honestly. It hadn't happened, apparently, as I examined all of the nails and it looked like, at most, a close call, so I went on and did a gradient to make myself feel better:

I will acknowledge that my gradients were absurdly wonky and unblended, but my excuse is that Sally Hansen's Insta Dri's Thorn this Way and It's Giving have silver microflakies and they were disrupting a lot in my sponge making the gradient quite challenging. I also acknowledge that I need more practice, and probably should try building my blends with not a black and with smoother formulas, not a flake. But that's a problem for future me. I like my black to green era, the alt kid in me is thriving in this.

Or that I thought. Without any prompt, on September 28th, I felt absurdly dumb. One of the nails was, indeed, broken. You cannot see it in that pic, because it was on my other hand. It was just in a perfect angle that was obscured by my view and in two days it was just enough for it to look bent and broken. Took of the manicure immediately to reassess the situation... and shorten them all. I needed help with my mood, because my new computer was also being assembled so I just couldn't devote myself to streaming or anything like that. I decided to break the rules with toppers again. I used Holo Taco's Foiled Again as the base, and applied a thin coat of Holo Taco's Everything is Pine as a topper. The base barely lost any metallic tone, and the holographic glitter just made everything better, as it should:
 

And that was the last manicure I did on September. October will consist of manicures trying to regrow my nails, although I run into an issue after breaking my nail but it will become more relevant in next month's post. Look at me, leaving it at a cliffhanger. Thanks for reading!

Piercing Cat Eye nails tutorial

Do you want an excuse to pull out those magnetics that are so on vogue right now but you kind of don't want a basic manicure with just the cat eye effect? Why don't you make literal cat eye nails with cat eye polish? I will teach you how to do it, it's very easy and you can create more realistic looks or more outlandish ones. Sauron's eye, anyone?

 

Please understand that due to the way I present my swatch sticks for the photos, this doesn't look... very feline. But imagine it sideways and you'll see what I see. This is very customizable as you basically only need a magnetic for the eye, and then black. You can also add a third colour for the fur of the cat, or the effect you're going for, around. But I decided to go with a black cat anyways. The shades I've used are:

As I said, you only need a magnetic and the black. Mine are from Holo Taco:

• Holo Taco's Menchie Cat Eye
• Holo Taco's One Coat Black

I totally feel like using a shade called after an actual cat's eye just adds to the concept, that's why I chose this one. Also it's a light sage green, in contrast with more saturated shades I own as other magnetics. I should expand my magnetic catalogue but honestly I am quite lazy to use them personally. And I'm not good at them, anyways.

First, you want to do basically a basic magnetic manicure with the cat eye style of magnetization. I personally prefer to build the polish to opacity and magnetize only the final coat, because ten fingers and waiting a minute there for each nail and coat? Not happening, let me tell you that.

Make sure you put your magnetic stripe on the direction you want the cat eye to look at. I made mine horizontal, instead of the regular diagonal, for this nail look.

 

Then, we will define the shape of the eye. I draw two curved shapes, from the center of the cuticle from the center of the free edge. Fill the outer part of it with the polish:

In my opinion, this is just a nice framing for the eye, specially to trick the brain into this extreme shape. If your nail shape is more on the pointy side, you might want to go extremely thin with your lines here, like the cartoon nails that were a trend several years ago. The final step is close, you will need to draw a thin line in the middle of your eye, don't fully cover the magnetic stripe but paint it there:

 

And that would be the final look. There are many variations of this, like adding a white dot to express shine or just go for more extreme colour combinations or pupil shapes. I think that with a red background, this could totally go hard as Sauron's eye from Lord of the Rings, for example.

Thanks for reading! This is one of my main ways of wearing magnetic nail polishes when I want something fast to do to them without wearing them on their own and I think it's just perfect for this season! I don't really succeed at the velvet or aura or whatever they call it nowadays style of magnetization of bringing all the pigment to the top, and honestly a horseshoe magnet for just literally five polishes in my collection that are magnetic is overkill, so... I don't know! Maybe I need more magnetics! 

Old Tombstone nails tutorial

 It's October, I'm in a new computer because my old one broke down on me, and I'm going to show you how to mourn losses in your life but in a very slay way: make their tombstones on your nails!

It's quite easy to make, we're using very basic nail art techniques that we have discussed extensively. For this, I used these three polishes:

They're all from my local grocery shop's beauty line, feel free to substitute with any brand you like, obviously. I'm showing these as examples:

• Deliplus' 88
• Deliplus' 68
• Deliplus' Gel Effect Nº107

Or, what I call them: a grey for the stone, a green for the moss and because it's literally me, and black for the lines. That black has a very very slight shimmer that basically disappears on the nail so yeah, I use it as plain black.

First off, paint your nails grey. I required two thin coats to reach the desired opacity, I swear this brand releases great polishes in terms of quality, so I build my collection a lot relying on them:

 

Next up, to give it the old and decrepit look, I decided to use a make up sponge's asymmetrical edge to add some green emulating moss and decay. I used this same technique to emulate a galaxy and sea foam with other colours, and here you can see its versatility. The first dabs with the sponge will be more concentrated so I placed them below on the nail so it can also double up as grass and vegetation crawling up:

 

Now, I used the black and a thin detail brush to write RIP on my nail. Honestly, my brush is old and not really sharp and good, and I need way more practice, but hey. It's frayed at this point and I did what I could. I will suggest starting with the I in the center to mark where the middle point is and then writing the rest. Go slowly, you've got this. And if it doesn't turn out sharp, you can say it's intentional for the eerie vibe! Win win situation, perfect moment to attempt it:

 With the slight rest of the black polish blob I had in my palette (a yoghourt lid, yes, like Simply) I did a couple of cracks around the nail to just bring home the decay, and after this, wait a bit before applying your top coat to avoid smudging. Float it. You'll thank me later. Or, hey, don't and smudge it for the creepy effect and call it intentional, too! Clean your top coat brush before putting it back into the bottle, though.

 

Personally, I would go with the matte effect for this design, to really make it look more like stone. You can also use a more visually textured polish for your base, I won't be naming any specifics but you can experiment with greys in your collection. In any case, the initial picture of this post is the matte effect, let me show it to you again:

And that would be it! I have done this set on myself prior to this tutorial, to mourn two recent passings: I broke a nail AGAIN, I'm cursed. And my PC also died. So as October is here, yeah, perfect opportunity:

I swear they are the exact same polishes, but the difference in light make them look different, as I haven't colour corrected my hand at all and the light was a bit on the cooler side.

Anyways, thanks for reading and be on the lookout for more nail arts for this season! This might be one of my favourite ones to do nail art for, even with my palette self imposed limitations I always have a plethora of ideas, so see you all next week! Be also ready for what I wore last month, in which I will show you when the nail break occurred.

Flake Gradient nails tutorial

This week I had another social event, yes, another wedding, so I will show you a very very easy technique you can use at any fancy event that allows some extra sparkles. This time, you will need no special tools, even! We're doing a gradient, but with flakes, and I'll show you two!

Do not pay attention to the fact that my swatch sticks have a chipped corner. A couple of them came with this and... oh well, let's do them together, shall we? I mean, it's still a functional surface!

 

For this you will need two polishes, the base and the flakes. Easy enough, right? You can use a full coverage flakey bomb polish, which is what I used, or a flake topper. In this case, you'll probably need a sponge to really load up one end of the gradient, I can try that for another tutorial, but in this case, I went for full coverage because come on, I needed quick and easy nails that I could retouch just in case!

 

 I used these two pairs of polishes:

 

• Holo Taco's Mint Mojito
• Holo Taco's Mint Money
• Holo Taco's Green Taffy
• Holo Taco's Foiled Again

I'll address the elephant in the room, yes my frosted metals (all of them) are slightly tarnished, they're still usable even though the colour is slightly different. I have no proof or tests done but my assumption is that something in the frosted metals react with specifically the pigment in the brush of the bottle, because they are actually discoloured, and that is transfering to the base of the polish, making it slightly thinner and having a hint of a sepia hue.

 

In any case, time to apply your base to opacity. I used linear holos to just mask sparkle with sparkle in case things went off the hook, but you can use a crème if you so desire:

 

Probably one coat would have done the trick if I went slightly thicker, but I noticed slight bald spots. Well, now the technique. You want to grab a small amount of polish and put your flakes slightly heavy on the base, like a normal to thick coat, not a blob (or tip, depends on what look you're going for!) and then do very slight flicks through the nail. You can stop before the end of the nail. That way, your flakes will feel opaque or almost and they will fade to nothing, showing your base (in my case, the holo) below.

 

 

I stopped close to the tip, but you can do a second coat to intensify the effect or make the flakes reach the end of the nail. It's absolute personal preference. I did a second coat reaching the end of the nail with very few flakes and that's the effect I went with:

 

 

I wore the mint version for a wedding I had because honestly, it was a hot day and the mint shirt I have is more breathable yet still appropiate, but I stacked more things on top because I'm extra and I can't stop won't stop:

 

If you're curious, I layered Holo Taco's Everything Taco on top because that's like my party topper that I wear for any big celebration, and then a coat of Holo Taco's Reflective Taco because, as I said, can't stop won't stop. Hey, it's a very subtle effect but I knew it was there and saw it, hence mission accomplished.

Anyways, thanks for reading, I will see you next week with another easy tutorial. I will most likely stream it on twitch next Wednesday, be on the look for my stream schedule! 

Jelly Potion Sandwich nails tutorial

Do you know what I realised? We haven't done any jelly sandwiches as tutorials and we're going to change that today. Let's play with layers!

This is truly the simplest of techniques, as you will only need two polishes. They have to be of a specific formula but it will be fine, I swear:

 

The polishes you will need are a jelly and a topper. A jelly is a translucent polish, intentionally sheer. And a topper is a polish that you want to put on top of your manicure to add effects like flakes, shimmers or glitters. I'll explain as we go what the effect is, for now, mine are:

• Mixture I did of a couple drops of green polish into a bottle of transparent polish, not top coat
• Deliplus' Duo Nº900 (only the white glitters part)

I know this is probably the less helpful list of products so far, as I made my own mix with a bit of green polish and that duo polish has been discontinued for a decade or so, and it's 3 mL bottles. I used almost all of it for a manicure, sample size can't even describe it!

Our first step will be painting a coat of our jelly, so it's transparent on purpose. If you use it on natural nails, you are meant to see your nail line!

Next step, paint a coat of your topper on top! Mine has small white hexagonal glitters and a golden shimmer throughout. I kinda want more white glitters or flakes, they're fun...

And to complete the sandwich, you need to add another layer of jelly. Again, its transparency will allow the topper to show through but with the hue of the jelly you're using, adding a lot of dimensionality to your manicure and making it look like it came out like that straight out of the bottle. Also, a second coat of the jelly will help a lot with coverage and saturation.

In camera it's very shy but in person I could see more of the glitters. But if you don't like this, you can keep going! Add another layer of topper to get a more dense topper effect:

 And of course, you can add a final coat of jelly if you want to encase this one too!

 The different layers of topper and jelly will create a lot of visual interest on your nails no matter what look you end up going for, if the simple sandwich, topped or double sandwich, so it's a case by case basis depending on how the polishes play together and your personal preference. I am wearing this exact manicure topped, but when I did it, my topper was extremely thickened by time and I decided against thinning it for consistency between my nails. A bad decision, but a decision nonetheless:

That's why my glitter looks so dense. Because it is, it was lacking base. It also makes my manicure to feel thick. Also fun fact that I didn't realise when I made this jelly a couple years ago! I did it with a cheap Pinkduck polish in shade 11, a totally medium green, the green you think when you think of green. That pigment, for some reason, reacts to black light:

 My plan was for the glitters to look like bubbles, preliminarly, but it didn't translate great so it doesn't really look like a potion, but I'll pretend like it does and move on, y'know? So, hey, nail polish companies, if you want to collab with me, we can work on a jelly with glitters... and, oh, yeah, thanks for reading! See you next week, I hope, with another elegant set because I have another wedding to attend to and I don't know if I should repeat mani. Even though I'm repeating outfit. lol the hypocrisy.