46 Fall Nail Art Ideas for a Fresh Autumn Manicure

We love the quilt-like vibes of this colorful yet simple manicure by Betina Goldstein. There are absolutely no rules when it comes to which colors to use — go with any combination of at least six shades that feel the most "fall" to you — and be sure to switch up their order on each finger. Just be sure to use a superfine brush to create clean boxes, like the Doublemoss Arte brush Goldstein used. You can watch how she created this blocky beauty right here.

"If you have a toothpick, you can have sweater nails," says nail artist Miss Pop about her adorable and undeniably cozy-looking manicure. No brush is needed other than the one that comes with your chosen base color's bottle because you can create that cable-knit look with just a tiny wooden tip. Simply paint on a few rows of uniform squiggles — she recommends doing it in a color that really stands out from a dark foundation shade — and you're all set.

If you lived through the '90s, you know that virtually every September issue of any teen or fashion magazine heavily featured plaid as a classic fall pattern. It’s still timeless, but if you're looking for a fresh way to wear it, consider a French manicure with plaid tips. This version by nail artist Savannah Walker of Manifest Nail is especially autumnal, thanks to its warm shades of brown. Although the clear base may make it seem simple, the intricate details within the plaid itself make this design one you'll want to take to a pro.

Perk up an otherwise neutral manicure with a couple more colors on a single nail. This chic look starts with a coat of OPI Nail Lacquer in the red shade Art Walk in Suzi's Shoes. You'll then want to apply the midnight-purple shade Abstract After Dark in three ascending horizontal lines and connect them with a detail brush to create a staircase near the cuticle area, followed by filling them in. Use the detail brush again to apply Espresso Your Inner Self in a similar manner and fill in the rest of the nail with the bottle's brush.

Wine will always be a favorite fall nail color, but if you're in the mood for a little more pizzazz, try this easy DIY nail art. Miss Pop simply dotted around the perimeter of each nail — a dotting tool or toothpick both work — with OPI's light pink Another Ramen-tic Evening and shimmery shell Throw Me a Kiss. It completely changes the feel of the sophisticated burgundy shade We the Female.

Just like leaves drying up on trees can make for a beautiful sight in the fall, so can dried flowers on your fingertips. Elle created this gorgeous look Blake Lively by using Le Chat Perfect Match Smoke Show for an ombré effect, followed by a very sheer coat of the brand's new pale pink shade Simply Me. She then took tiny pressed flowers (a craft store find!) soaked in alcohol and placed them on the nails along with gold and silver foil. Whether you're using traditional or gel polish, just be sure to seal in these three-dimensional elements with the appropriate topcoat.

Silver and gold know no single season, but we're loving the combination of both for a fun fall manicure like this one by Goldstein. Any opaque silver polish will do for the base — Essie's No Place Like Chrome is a great pick — and any opaque golden polish will work for the stars. But if you don't trust your hand to be steady enough to paint on perfect stars, you can always try decals to make it especially easy to achieve this look.

There's no need to bother with nail polish at all when there are such cute, custom-sized stick-on nail gels like these so readily available. ManiMe's L8r G8r set has a fabulous crocodile-print effect — dark-green ovals on both lighter green and golden backgrounds that you can mix and match — that feels both bold and versatile. You can expect the $25 set to last well over a week and look absolutely perfect since they're cut to fit your specific nails.

Black nail polish always makes a big comeback every fall, but there are more ways to wear it than as just a solid shade. Miss Pop made black infinitely more interesting by leaving it out in select negative spaces. She painted on thick lines and triangles in different geometric combinations, leaving only glossy bare nails to show through in its absence.

We're completely obsessed with Goldstein's "floating ink" fingernails. She combined ethereal swirls of three Essie shades — Cacti on the Prize, Infinity Cool, and You Know the Espadrille — to create an abstract masterpiece that looks like magical, marbleized stone or paints swimming around in a puddle. No two manicures will look alike, even if you use the same combination of colors.

Nails don't need to be long to look fierce with a pointed tip or vibrant nail art, as evidenced by this bold manicure by Walker. The vibrant kelly green and sharp tips have a witchy vibe (Halloween is just around the corner, after all), but it avoids feeling too themed, thanks to thin black-and-white stripes in random directions.

Knowing the end of summer doesn't mean the end of adoring the ocean, Elle created this sparkling manicure that incorporates several common nail-art effects. For the ring fingers, she used LeChat Dare to Wear My Serenity, Moonstone, and Flawless White, dropping them on a glass palette to marbleize them by dragging the colors together in a horizontal motion. "Then, take a thicker nail-art brush and pick up the glob of the swirl of colors. Place it and drag it onto the nail," she says.

For the pinky, pointer and thumb, she painted a line and filled it in with glitter to cover a quarter of the nail. On the middle finger, using a thicker gel brush, she started heavier at the base of the nail and then lightly using the brush to fade it toward the top for an ombré effect.

Miss Pop promises this thick, off-center, richly red twist on the French manicure — which she debuted during the Prabal Garung Fall 2020 fashion show — is truly easy to do at home. To get the vampy look, she simply used a stencil over nude nails to paint perfect crescents of Zoya Professional Lacquer in Alyssa on the tips (because even the most talented nail artists use tools to help them get the most precise looks).

Tortoiseshell nails have been a thing for a while now, and there's no sign of the trend dying down, though we totally understand if you're ready for a new take on them this fall. Nail artist Betina Goldstein hand-painted these black-and-white beauties using polishes by Essie, Chanel, and Orly — who says you have to stick to one brand? — atop Aprés Nail extensions. The more imperfect this look is the better, so it's ideal for a DIY attempt at nail art.

Can you say "fall wedding nails"? Elle created this simple yet glamorous look that would be perfect for a small ceremony — or just something to enjoy looking at while you're working from home. After two coats of LeChat Dare to Wear Irish Cream, she used a striper brush dipped LeChat Perfect Match Cosmic Flash (launching in October) to create the vertical lines by moving the nail rather than the brush to achieve a straight line. (Genius!) "Adding the glitter gives this neutral look a little flare to transition into fall," Elle tells Allure.

This stony look, dubbed Bravo Terrazzo by OPI, feels especially perfect for fall thanks to the jewel-tone Nail Lacquer shade Drama at La Scala. Use Alpine Snow and a detail brush to paint various-sized angular shapes as well as This Color Hits All the High Notes for pebble-like blobs, whether you cover the entire nail, a portion, or mix it up.

This twist on the classic crescent moon manicure showed up on the Veronica Beard Fall 2020 runway, courtesy of nail artist Rita Remark. Rather than paint a curve near the cuticle, she painted a horizontal line of Essie's Cliff Hanger near the nail bed to kick off a color-blocked look which naturally created a feeling of color-blocking. Most of the nail is covered in the brick-hued Essie shade Bed Rock & Roll, which is about as autumnal as a nail color can get.

With its tiny stripes in traditionally springy and summery shades like periwinkle, sunny yellow, peachy pink, and neon green, you might think this manicure wouldn't work for fall. Think again! Nail artist Savannah Walker's unexpected inclusion of colors like brown and copper make this an amazing transitional manicure — especially with that hint of sparkle on each nail.

Perhaps not the best choice for the ophidiophobic among us, this snake-like manicure was created by nail artist Mei Kawajiri or Rag & Bone's Fall 2020 show. She used OPI GelColor in Mi Casa Es Blue Casa as the base, followed by the brand's Coral-ing Your Spirit Animal and Big Apple Red for the curving shapes. The result is bright, graphic, and perhaps even a little Halloween-y.

If you love wavy lines but not the literal snake look, this sophisticated take is the way to go. Paintbox started with a super-pale pink, and autumn'd it up with an olive green, curvy stripe through each nail. It's somehow both bold and neutral — a great first foray into nail art for a newbie.

KBShimmer's polishes are basically nail art in a bottle, and the Apple-y Ever After Tri-Thermal Nail Polish is proof. Its "rich brown hue warms into a brick red color almost caramel color, then gives way to a Granny-Smith-apple-green," the brand says. Yes, those color transitions all came from the same bottle of micro-holographic glitter polish. We don't ask how — we just appreciate.

Superlong nails are not a prerequisite for a French manicure, and neither is the typical white tips. Nail artist Kara Crevier used the Olive & June Nailfie Ready Box to create a minimalist look that works so well for fall: a pale base with the thinnest stripes of a warm, rusty color at the tips.

Paintbox is the place to go for New Yorkers who love subtle graphic manicures, but thanks to the recent launch of its own nail polishes, anyone can attempt gorgeous negative-space nail art in the color-theory combos the studio is famous for. Here, the "Power Couple" set in Like Wild and Like Wonder is used to created dark, mossy green teardrop tips dotted like exclamation points with the palest blue.

Scroll through Katie Masters' Instagram grid — she goes by @nailthoughts on the app — and you'll notice that tortoiseshell is one of her most-requested manicures. The abstract pattern is arguably a year-round classic, but there's something intrinsically autumnal about it. Perhaps it's because it recalls the academic look of glasses and a studious back-to-school vibe.

Rich berry shades are a fall staple, and if you're reluctant to let go of the summer weather, this gradient manicure expresses that beautifully. It was created by blending to together three diluted shades of OPI GelColor: Another Ramen-tic, Arigato From Tokyo, and All Your Dreams.

The birds may be migrating before it gets too cold, but these gorgeous geese can stick around on your nails. Nail artist Betina Goldstein used the Essie shades Licorice, Blanc, and Geranium (for the beaks) to create a tiny interpretation of artist Dinara Mirtalipova's print "Princess and Geese."

At the Staud Fall 2019 runway show, nail artist Naomi Gonzales-Longstaff painted models' nails in the most perfect neutral shade of light brown, Zoya's Spencer. Even with a little stripe of the shade Kerry, a yellow-gold foil, it reads simple and sophisticated, not overly glitzy.

Prefer a little more obvious sparkle with your neutrals? Jin Soon Choi gave the models at Tibi's Fall 2019 show a combination of her own taupe-y brown Dulcet and glittery silver Glitzy polishes. To create a more dramatic contrast, Dulcet was sealed with a matte topcoat.

"I just love warm tones," nail artist Savannah Walker tells Allure of how she decided on the shades in this retro manicure. The burgundy, orange, and yellow stripes on a mustard base make it not only '70s-inspired but also ideal for fall.

If you prefer a different era, ask your favorite nail artist for a '50s-inspired midcentury modern manicure like this one by Sarah Kane. Using several matte shades in football-like shapes on each nail, Kane painted a variety of geometric designs, leaving a hint of negative space above the cuticle.

If you love dark nail lacquer, chances are you haven't been waiting for fall to break out your favorite pitch-black polish. But just in case you've been holding back, now's the ideal time to get inspired by the chic, black manicures seen on the models at John Richmond's Fall 2019 show in Milan.

Allure editor-in-chief Michelle Lee is always sharing her innovative manicures, and this one with curtain-shaped tips is a chic combination of dark and neutral shades that looks incredible on longer nails.

You've gotta love gray come cooler weather — it just feels like it goes together. But it's anything but blah when you add in some fun swirls. Here, Essie's Mind-ful Meditation is used to decorate a base for some artful swirls of the brand's Serene Slate.

Negative-space manis aren't just a spring and summer look. With rich shades like mulberry mixed into a marble effect with warm, shimmering gold, as Katie Masters did here, leaving an asymmetrical hint of naked nails has never looked more autumnal.

You don't need the skills of a nail artist to mix in a little metal with a fall-friendly shade like moss green. The high-shine KB Shimmer shade #squadghouls doesn't just have a name that's made for the Halloween season, it has built-in golden glitter that makes it a no-brainer this time of year.

Classic polka-dots get a unique negative-space twist in this manicure by Betina Goldstein. She painted rich, chocolate-brown crescents along on side of each nail, dotting the darkness with a bright white polish.

There's something subtly futuristic about this manicure by Sarah Kane (which has a navy base with skinny white diamond and a red dot in the middle), even though it was created with classic colors. As long as you have a steady hand, there's no need to visit a nail artist for this look — though we don't blame you if you do.

You may be surprised to learn that this seemingly solid shade is actually a combination of two colors. For the Jonathan Simkhai Fall 2019 show, nail artist Alicia Torello layered Côte nail polish in No. 49 (which the brand describes as "adobe clay") and No. 87 ("sangria purple") to create a color that will take you all the way to winter and beyond.

Anyone who's ever gone to a private school knows the combination of plaid skirts and black sweaters all too well. And while you don't have to wear those anymore, you can pay tribute to that back-to-school vibe with this manicure idea by Savannah Walker. She painted some of her clients' nails solid black while hand-painting a yellow, black, and red plaid on the others.

If your plaid preferences lead more toward buffalo, this simpler option with wider stripes and only two colors — modeled by our own Michelle Lee — is fall no-brainer. And you don't need to layer all your prettiest rings for this manicure to look cool (though it sure doesn't hurt).

This warm design exhibits a whole new take on gradient manicures. It starts with a solid pinky in OPI Infinite Shine polish in Yank My Doodle, a tawny terracotta, which rises as an arch higher and higher on its way to the thumb, supported by a growing ridge of the shimmering shade Worth a Pretty Penne. An expanding section of negative space adds an extra touch of chicness.

You don't have to spell out "New York" like Miss Pop did with Essie's Licorice and Blanc for Jeremy Scott's Fall 2019 show — any word (or words) with 10 letters or less will work for this especially personal manicure. And any two contrasting shades will work, too, if black and white isn't your style.

Pastels may not seem like an obvious way to go for a fall manicure, but deepen them just a bit and you've got a great summer-to-fall transitional look. Pastel purply-blue is deepened to a rich periwinkle with this Côte shade, No. 81, a "shimmery wisteria purple."

Very few manicures scream "fall" quite like a shade of dark red. But if you're tired of the same old same old, check out this update by nontoxic New York City nail salon Tenoverten. Not too thick, not too thin, partial stripes in a creamy white shade add interest to a timeless look.

This manicure conveys a clear love of Halloween without screaming it like a banshee. After a perfect pumpkin-orange base in the JinSoon shade Enflammee. While it's still wet, the shades Obsidian and Doux were added to two accent nails and gently dragged with a striping brush to create ghostly swirls.

The weather may be cooler, but this KB Shimmer nail polish is the coolest. With its shimmering mix of metallic black, purple, and gold tones, you can manipulate the finish with a magnet, pulling the still-wet polish in various directions to create a celestial look.