You don’t have to get dressed up in a costume to enjoy the spirit of Halloween in October. Halloween is the perfect time of year to get creative with your manicure and try something unique when it comes to nail design. Match your nails to your halloween costume, go for a classic halloween manicure or try something spooky or maybe even something sweet.
Designs for Halloween Nails That Are Perfect for Spooky Season
From cute ghosts, spooky spiders, and colorful pumpkins to scary monsters, blood drips and zombies, we’ve rounded up some of the best halloween nail art designs.
French Tips
If you’re a beginner nail artist or just want a simple, minimalist design these Halloween French tips are the perfect inspiration. At first glance they look like orange and black nails, but look closer and spot little ghosts floating in the windows.
Jack-O-Lantern Nails
Want a classic way to represent Halloween on your nails? Paint some classic jack o’lanterns on your nails. Start with a black sparkly base to make the nails even more festive and then paint a variety of pumpkin shapes with orange polish. To add some dimension to the pumpkins, you can use a sponge to place some yellow polish on the pumpkin like nail artist @nbnailart did with this halloween design.
Blue Ombre Bat Nails
The blue ombre background of these almond shaped nails created a perfect midnight sky for some hand painted halloween bats. You can try mixing up the ombre colors for various night sky colors.
Purple Halloween Nails
Ghosts, spider webs, and slime help make these pink and purple nails perfect for Halloween. If this design is too subtle for you, the purple accent nails with ghosts would also look great across a whole hand.
Halloween Accent Nail Design
If you want to have a cute halloween themed manicure without going overboard on the design, try adding just one accent nail or an accent tip with some halloween art.
Disney Halloween Nails
Who doesn’t love Mickey Mouse and Disney for halloween? Turn this cute theme into adorable halloween Disney nails with a ghost Mickey Mouse and a cute Mickey Mouse pumpkin.
Stitched Together
I love how easy this design is to DIY and customize. Paint contrasting seasonal colors, then use a fine brush to add in the stitches. To create Frankenstein nails, try using different shades of green. Or get inspired by Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas and opt for teal, yellow, and pink.
Flying Ghosts
If you’re looking for an easy halloween design that can be done at home try these cute halloween ghosts nails. You can do a variety of flying ghosts with some partially on the nail and on the tip of the nail. Add a different color for each ghost if you want to make your design more colorful.
Fun Halloween Nails
A fun take on classic halloween nails, this design is the perfect balance of cute and festive halloween nails. Start with a neutral color for the base, add an abstract tip in your favorite color and then dress each nail up with fun halloween art.
Celestial Snake Nails
These green and black stiletto nails are the perfect combo for Halloween. The metallic green tips, snake nail design and white stars stand out on top of the black nail polish. See more press on nails like these that can be purchased from @lunadarkalt
Short Halloween Nails
You can still paint your nails for Halloween even if you like to keep them short! There isn’t as much room for elaborate art on short nails so keep Halloween drawings simple and on the tips for a bold effect.
Bright Halloween Nails
These bright Halloween nails draw inspiration from seasonal and celestial designs. By using matte nail polish and softer hues the bright colors still manage to look spooky. Get creative and try a different design and color combination on each nail.
Halloween Nails Tutorial
This is a fun and easy halloween nail tutorial created by award winning nail artist, Fie Pedersen. The pumpkin and happy ghost are perfect for creating a cute halloween nail design.
Spider Webs
Take your basic spider web design and turn it up a notch by adding different colors to the nail tip.
Pink Halloween Nails
Want something girlie but also with just a tiny bit of halloween? Try some pretty in pink Halloween nails. Start with a light pink nude base and add cute pink pumpkins. If you want your nails looking a tiny bit spooky, add other haunting art to the mix like spooky spiders and cobwebs or ghosts and mummies.
Candy Corn Nails
You can go simple with an ombre candy corn nail design covering the entire nail or add many mini detailed candy corns on an accent nail.
French Dripping Blood Nails
Create the look of a french manicure but make it halloween style. Try these blood drip nails on coffin nails. You could paint the french tip with black polish as well for an even spookier look.
Easy Halloween Nails
If you’re looking for an easy Halloween manicure this design is a great one for inspiration and perfect for shorter nails. To help with the details, try using nail art brushes.
Rainbow Halloween Nails
These adorable Halloween ghost nails are not at all what you’d expect when you think of ghosts; but that’s what makes this design so fun and unique. If you’re DIYing this design, get creative with your color choices and ghost placement for one-of-a-kind nail art.
Trick or Treat Nails
Simple yet festive, these trick or treat nails are a great idea if you want a simple design. Swap bright colors with neon and matte hues for a unique holiday look. If you’re inexperienced with lettering, choose a very thin stripe brush and practice on paper first.
Scary Scream Nails for Halloween
Scream masks are a classic horror staple and they look super creepy for Halloween — especially on nails. Add in other fun halloween themed designs like a black cat and skulls. For a more trendy look, use a matte top coat.
Black and Orange Nails
Classic Halloween colors like black and orange can be incorporated into nail art in a variety of ways. Try doing a different design on each nail; some fun ideas are checkerboards, black and orange stripes, pumpkins, and ghosts.
Charlie Brown Halloween Nails
Halloween nails don’t have to be scary! This Charlie Brown inspired nail art is so cute; perfect for all your great pumpkin adventures this fall. Use matte nail polish; it really makes the art look like a cartoon.
Witch Nails for Halloween
Occult or celestial witch nails are a newer trend for spooky season, especially for folks who want something a little less traditional. To get the look, start with a black base and use metallic gold to add your favorite witchy symbols to each nail.
Beetlejuice Striped Nails
If you say Beetlejuice three times do these cute themed nails appear? I love when nail artists take color and pattern inspiration from a character to create unique nail art like this coordinated set.
Spooky Skeletons
Spooky scary skeletons make surprisingly cute nail art! Instead of traditional skulls, give skeletons life by adding accessories and fun poses.
Glitter Halloween Nails
If glitter nails are your thing don’t be afraid to incorporate that into Halloween nail art. The combination of black and silver is grim enough for spooky season, but the pink accents add a feminine touch to the design.
Celestial Moon Nail Art
Moons and stars are perfect witchy nail art ideas that look great all season long. Paint the whole nail black, then add a sparkly gold crescent moon or starburst design. Once you have your main designs, finish off with some smaller stars using a dotting tool. This design would also work with nail art stickers!
Nightmare Before Christmas
Jack Skellington, Sally, and other Nightmare Before Christmas characters are perfect nail art inspiration for this time of year. If character art isn’t your thing, you can always create themed designs like spooky bats and jack-o-lanterns.
Slime Green
Who knew slime could be cute? This design could be a super easy beginner project. First, file your nails to square or coffin tips then paint the whole nail in black. From there, use a glittery stamping polish and a fine brush or dotting tool to add drips. Once dry, paint eyes on top! If you don’t love green slime, other neon colors like pink, yellow, and orange would look cool too.
Horror Movies
Look to your favorite horror movies for spooky nail inspiration this season. Whether you go with an IT theme (like the nails pictured) or create your own designs, horror can definitely inspire some creepy nail art ideas!
Black Nails
Instead of doing solid black, take your Halloween nails to the next level by reimagining black nail designs. Try using a combination of matte and glitter polish to create stand out designs or add stickers as an easy DIY idea.
Sweet Spooky Nails
Use a cohesive color scheme (like hot pink, black and white) and combine something spooky with something sweet like hearts.
Cute Halloween Nails
These cute Halloween designs are perfect for nails of any length, including short nails. Alternate between spooky season friends like ghosts and pumpkins and don’t forget to outline in black to make your art pop.
Hocus Pocus Nails
Do you smell children? One hand of these Hocus Pocus inspired nails features outlines of the three witches from the movie, and the other hand has their corresponding broom (or vacuum). Recreate this idea or find ways to bring other elements from the movie into a unique nail design instead!
Addams Family Nails
Inspired by Wednesday from the Addams Family, these spooky nails are a fun way to celebrate Halloween. The silhouette and other Addams Family references are cool, but I also love the idea of using spider webs to create Halloween French tip nails.
Halloween Orange Ombre Nails
Use an ombre nail brush or a nail sponge to create an orange ombre background. The ombre base provides the perfect background for a halloween ghost and spider web to be hand painted on top.
Black and White
What really makes this black and white nail art stand out is that a few of the designs are raised using gel nail polish. The ghosts are pretty straightforward to paint on, but to create the mummy nail art you’ll need to use a brush to drizzle white gel nail polish back and forth.
Negative Space
Sometimes less is more, like in these negative space nails. This is also a great example of how you can use non-traditional colors, like peach, and still create spooky nail art. The bats and starburst can be painted by hand or addedin with nail stickers, but the real gem in this design is the vampire bite nail.
Mix and Match Nails
Can’t decide on one nail design? Mix and match a bunch of Halloween designs for fun art that’s perfect for natural nails or acrylics. Matte nail polish is still trending this fall; give it a shot next time you paint your nails.
Classy Orange Halloween Nails
Halloween nails but make it classy. Nail artist @alinahoyonailartist took orange halloween nails to the next level by adding a black drip from the base of the nail and finishing the design with a matte top coat.
Sugar Skulls
Sugar skulls inspired by Dia de los Muertos are a fun way to add some color to Halloween nail art. Create your designs using fall colors or opt for traditional Day of the Dead hues like black, white, purple, and pink.
