By Michelle Cohen March 28, 2017

This Passover, try something exciting and new with 10 plagues nail art! The result is bound to impress people at your Seder. Feel free to make your own adaptations to the designs, whether that means choosing different patterns to represent the plagues or using different colors than I did. The sky is the limit for this fun Passover-themed nail art.

You Will Need:

Nail polish in the following colors:

White

Black

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Red

Blue

Green

Yellow

Pink

Grey (or mix white and black)

Something matching your skin tone

(Feel free to substitute these colors with ones you like or mix your own by adding white to a color to lighten it and black to darken it.)

Dotting tools or another way to create dots -– I recommend buying a cheap set of dotting tools, but you can also use pens or pencils in various levels of being sharpened to create the desired effect.

Nail polish remover and Q-tips or paper towels — for mistakes, and to clean the surrounding skin afterwards

How To Make The Plagues

1. Blood

This plague can be done in one of two ways. You could opt to paint your whole nail red, or you can follow the following steps for a blood-drip pattern.

Step 1: Paint your nail with the skin-colored polish.

Step 2: Put a good amount of red polish on your dotting tool, so it will start to drip, and make several dots at different heights along your nail.

Step 3: Drag the extra polish down from the dots to make the blood drop’s path.

Step 4: Fill in the tip of your nail with red polish to create the place where the blood is coming from.

2. Frogs

Step 1: Paint your nail with the background color. For this design, feel free to use whatever background color you want. I had light green polish for the frog, so I created a contrast with a dark blue background.

Step 2: Paint a green semicircle and add two large dots above it.

Step 3: Put a smaller white dot in the center of each of the large dots to make the eyes.

Step 4: Add pupils by placing a small black dot in the middle of the white dots.

Step 5: Make two small lines with a small dotting tool to make the nostrils.

3. Lice

Step 1: Paint your nail with the skin-colored polish.

Step 2: Starting at the top of the nail, make two sweeping movements downwards to create locks of hair. I used yellow for the hair, but feel free to use whatever color you want.

Step 3: Add small dots to represent the lice in the hair. I recommend using black if you chose a light color for the hair and white if you chose a dark color for the hair, to maximize the contrast.

Step 4: Make two small horizontal lines at the bottom of your nail with black polish to make the impression of a neck. Feel free to add facial features if you want.

4. Wild Animals

This step is the most individualized one, considering that there’s no specific animal mentioned in this plague. When I do my plague nails, I choose an animal that I want to learn how to paint. I’ve done a panda bear here, but feel free to adapt the frog instructions or look up an Internet tutorial to create the face of any animal you want.**** Step 1: Paint your nail white.

Step 2: Using a dotting tool, make two black dots towards the top third of your nail, then create a line running around the border of your nail to connect the dots.

Step 3: Create droopy diagonal eyes and a tiny triangular nose with the dotting tool.

5. Cattle Disease

Step 1: Paint your nail white.

Step 2: Draw a pink semicircle starting at the tip of your nail.

Step 3: Use the dotting tool to make two dots for the nose and two dots for the eyes. I prefer to make open eyes for an alive cow, but feel free to make X’s for eyes to signify the cow’s death.

Step 4: Use the rest of the white space to make random black blotches, which will look print.

6. Boils

Step 1: Paint your nail with the skin-colored polish. This will make it look extra creepy, as if the boils are real.

Step 2: Use dotting tools of different sizes, or different amounts of nail polish on the same dotting tool, to create irregular red dots.

Step 3: Use a smaller dotting tool to put yellow dots in the middle of the red ones. I chose yellow because it resembles infection, but feel free to use white and make more pimply boils instead.

7. Hail

Step 1: Paint your nail blue. I prefer a deeper blue for a better contrast with the hail.

Step 2: Place many small grey dots all over your nail to create falling hail. You can also use white here for more of a snowy effect.

Step 3: Add a thin grey line to the tip of your nail to create a snow-covered ground.

8. Locusts

Step 1: Paint your nail white.

Step 2: Use a small dotting tool to create lines branching up from the tip of your nail. Make the lines connect like branches of a plant.

Step 3: Add many small black dots to the plant to make locusts.

9. Darkness

Step 1: The easiest one yet…simply paint your nail black.

10. Death of the Firstborns

Step 1: Paint your nail black.

Step 2: Use a large dotting tool to make a big dot for the skull. I chose to add an elongated vertical part at the bottom here to help make step 3 easier.

Step 3: Draw a thin line with white polish under the skull to make the jawbone. If you made the vertical part at the bottom of the skull in step 2, simply draw a black line in the middle of it to separate the jawbone from the rest of the skull.

Step 4: Draw an X below the jawbone to give a skull-and-crossbones vibe.

Step 5: Use a small black dotting tool to add two dots for eyes and a tiny triangular nose in the middle of the skull.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount