Murder Mystery Blood Spatter Nails & Tutorial

Tonight I'm off to a murder mystery dinner. I clearly needed a matching set of my nails (any excuse, right?!). I knew I wanted to do some form of blood spatter and maybe add a few fingerprints in, but had no solid plan - I tend to make things up as I go along. This is what I came up with. See how I did it after the jump!

Murder Mystery Blood Spatter Nails @acertainbeccaa

I thought I would add a step by step tutorial. I used the following:

• Base and Top Coat - Ciate London 'One Coat A Day' & Seche Vite Fast Dry
• White Polish - China Glaze 'White on White'
• Black Polish - Barry M 'Black'
• Red Polish (I used two different shades) - Barry M 'Bright Red' & 'Raspberry'
• A Straw - I ended up using two, one for each red polish.
• Latex Peel Barrier/Liquid Latex

I started off with a base China Glaze 'White on White'. Shown below is two coats and Seche Vite fast dry top coat.

China Glaze 'White on White' @acertainbeccaa

I then added fingerprints to several of my nails. I dabbed a small amount of polish onto a piece of paper, stuck my finger tip in, and simply pressed it onto my nail. I found I got a better print if I first did a quick one onto paper to remove any excess polish. I added black fingerprints onto my thumbs and middle fingers using Barry M 'Black', and red ones on my ring fingers using Barry M 'Bright Red'.

Fingerprints using Barry M 'Black' & 'Bright Red'

Now onto the fun part! As this does get messy I coated my fingertips with liquid latex using a cotton bud - I bought a massive bottle of Liquid Latex off of eBay to test, as it is much cheaper than official barrier products. The ammonia in this latex does smell awful - reminiscent of cat pee. Lovely! However, the smell does fade completely as it dries.

Liquid Latex Barriers

To get the spatter effect, I dipped the end of a straw into my polish bottle, held it above my nail, and blew - one quick blow should work. I didn't want to cover the fingerprints completely. Instead of blowing polish onto those nails, I dropped polish from the straw and gently scraped the polish to create patterns. I did this first with Barry M 'Bright Red'.

Spatter with Barry M 'Bright Red'

I used another straw and did the same thing with Barry M 'Raspberry'.

Spatter with Barry M 'Bright Red' & 'Raspberry'

Clean up was quick and easy. I teased at the edge of the latex with a pair of tweezers and then pulled it up. It peeled off nicely in one layer. I removed any remaining polish (hardly any!) with acetone remover.

Murder Mystery Nails @acertainbeccaa

I wanted to show you all my thumb. It normally gets left out of photos, but I really liked how it came out.

Blood Spattered Thumb

After a coat of Seche Vite fast dry topcoat, I was done! Some of the polish 'blobs' were fairly thick so you may want a second coat of topcoat to smooth out any bumps. Here's a look at the finished mani again.

Murder Mystery Blood Spatter Nails @acertainbeccaa

What do you think? I absolutely love it! It was super messy and fun to do, and I'm so impressed with the final outcome. I'm off to get ready for this murder mystery dinner, see you all soon!
Becca x