Tips and tricks to make Halloween characters come to life with every day make-up and easy to find extras.
Horror make-up for Halloween could involve a full monster costume, but it is also often a time for parties and launches where a more glamorous or convincing horror character is required. Everyday make-up staples can be surprisingly useful for creating camera worthy ghouls or even something a bit more chic, and there are many other cheap products which can be adapted to look convincing as well.
Beauty Make-up Staples:
- Navy, purple and brown eye shadows are perfect for blending into eye sockets and is effective if matte rather than shimmer colors are used. Bruising, tiredness and an undead look are all easy to achieve with this technique and can look scarily realistic if done with a light touch. Contouring eye sockets, cheek bones and bony skulls is also simple as most beauty eye colors are made to be blended easily and look fabulous on camera.
- Too-pale foundation gives the skin a deathly pallor and if blended well can also provide a more realistic and less fancy dress look than grease paint or face paint. Try teaming this with either no blusher or a very bright, clean blush to bring out the paleness of the skin. Take a little foundation over the lips to look deathly pale.
- For chic, Halloween party make-up that is sexy rather than monstrous, use the above beauty products to create a ghoulish pale skinned and smoky eye look. This is perfect to team with this season's staples such as red lips or jeweled party lashes.
- For realism don't forget to blend pale foundation into neck, hands or anything on display and do not just stop at the chin.
- Concealer pencils are useful for lining eyes to make them look extra pale, especially if lashes are left without mascara. This is the opposite to a vampy smoky eye but looks equally good with red lips and washed out skin.
- Lip gloss is especially good for creating an oozy sheen if special effects make-up cannot be found.
- Black, matte lipstick is also a fantastic look for a glamorous Halloween make-up if done with polished make-up, 1920s style. Using a black kohl pencil to line lips around a deep wine colored lipstick also looks fabulous with pale skin and opulent lashes. Blot cream color with powder to make it seriously matte.
Adapting Cheap Halloween Effects:
Many shops sell cheap monster staples near Halloween.
- Fake fangs are easy to use and are fabulous to dress up a simple beauty make-up. Add some fake blood if necessary.
- For edible fake blood in larger quantities mix a tin of Golden Syrup with a tablespoon or two of drinking chocolate and red food coloring. Adding a little blue coloring could help to give this depth. Sickly and bad for teeth though this may be, it is a cheaper alternative to buying professional blood and can be used to dribble or ooze blood from fake or real teeth. Green blood and slime could be made in the same way substituting green food coloring for the red. Best of all it is non-toxic but try to get powdered food coloring rather than liquid to minimize the stain potential, and even so do not get this near anything you would not wish to stain.
- Small foam latex prosthetics such as noses are cheap to buy and available from professional make-up or party shops. These can be blended in to the skin with a little greasepaint or cream foundation and work well for photos.
- Cheap face paint sticks are an adapted form of theatrical grease paint. Whilst looking fake and gaudy if drawn directly on the skin, these are easy to blend out with a brush or sponge and are fabulous for contouring the face. Mix with foundation to give skin a colored hue; green and yellow work particularly well. Powder to set.
Professional Make-up Products:
Many of these substances are only suitable for use by trained professionals although some can be bought from make-up shops with instructions. However, although products are becoming increasingly high tech, often the best tool for using these is the imagination. Added to this, many products are quite versatile.
- Latex make-up glue or lash glue can be used to attach all sorts of things to the skin: Cotton wool balls rolled over almost dry glue impart a moldy looking fluff to the skin which is fabulous for zombies. Glitter, metal leaf and jewels are glamorous, whilst tissue and sponge give texture which can look fabulous when colored.
- Pro greasepaint is ideal for stage or for creating faces but can be used subtly to look ultra realistic.
- Tooth enamel is cheap and can give a black, stained or rotting tooth effect. White tooth enamel is also good for blending in cheap fangs. Follow instructions with this and remove with a toothbrush.
The copyright of the article Halloween Make-up Tips in Make-up Application is owned by Shefali Choudhury. Permission to republish Halloween Make-up Tips in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
 |
