Happy Halloween! Orange & Black French Manicure with Maybelline and Zoya

Happy Halloween, everyone! Now, I'm not going to lie ... I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween. As a kid, I LOVED it -- but I think that was directly proportional to how much candy I collected while trick or treating. Once I got too old for that pastime, I sort of let Halloween fall by the wayside. I still dressed up for college parties and everything, but it's just never held the same magic for me. What I DO love, though? Expressing a little Halloween spirit through my nails! And this year, I decided to try something completely new by attempting my very first French manicure, using Maybelline Color Show Nail Lacquer in Orange Fix and Zoya Storm.

To be perfectly frank, I was very concerned about this manicure. I am extremely terrible at nail art (except for polka dots, like my Halloween polka dot manicure from last year), so I wasn't really sure I'd be able to pull this off. But I figured I would at least try ... and if I failed? I'd just paint all my nails orange and call it a day.

I started with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Nail Lacquer in Orange Fix.
I started with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Nail Lacquer in Orange Fix ($3.99 at drugstore.com). There's no other way to describe this color -- it's ORANGE! It's the perfect bright orange that just makes you think of pumpkins. (It would also look fabulous as a summer pedicure.) This color is perfectly opaque in two coats and glides right onto the nail. I love Maybelline Color Show in general because of the highly pigmented colors and the ease with which the brush applies the polish. This one is no different!

Next came two coats of Zoya Storm on the tips.
Then came the hard part. Gingerly and carefully, I started applying thin lines of Zoya Storm ($9 at zoya.com) onto the tips of my nails. Now, here's the thing. I really thought this was going to be difficult ... no, I thought it was going to be impossible. I figured I'd have nail polish all over my fingers or that my hands would shake and the polish would spill onto the rest of the nail. But neither of those scenarios happened. Instead, I freehanded the tips with this gorgeous holographic glitter black polish in a matter of minutes! Even my right hand doesn't look too terrible, which is a feat considering I'm very left hand challenged. (You should have seen my handwriting in college when I hurt my right hand and couldn't use it for a couple weeks. Yikes.)

The finished French manicure!
And voila! The finished product. I have to admit I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!

And lest you think I've never gotten into Halloween, I leave you with a photo of me in one of my favorite costumes...

Dressing up as Strawberry Shortcake for Halloween, circa 1983.
Happy Halloween!