It's
become an annual tradition for me to celebrate Halloween by doing a
full week of Halloween makeup looks. I don't mean a spider web wing with
an orange accented lower lash line and black lip. I don't mean a dark
smoky eye with a vampy red lip. I'm talking full-faced Halloween makeup,
the type you could pull off as a costume. This year makes it the third
year in a row I've celebrated this way. Unfortunately, this season has
been rough for me mentally and emotionally and I couldn't pull through
for the whole week, but I was able to pull together three pretty solid
looks and I'm proud of each of them for different reasons. With each
look I challenged myself in different ways that I haven't before and
this year I was able to learn new things and grow artistically.
Day 1
For the first day I decided to pull together a pop-art-esque zombie
look. Any other year I've done a look involving making my face an
entirely different unnatural color I've taken the extremely
time-consuming and very drying route of pressing an eyeshadow into my
skin until it was as covered as I was going to get—but even then being
patchy and needing the help of a photo editor in the end to get the
full-colored appearance I desired. My challenge with this look was
finding a new method. At first I tried crushing up a bit of eyeshadow
and using a mixing medium to turn it into more of a liquidy consistence I
could paint on my face—once again, not pigmented enough to get that
full coverage. I then tried mixing the same crushed shadow in with a
good primer—this method got me the full coverage I was looking for but
took way too much product to spread evenly. Third time's the charm, I
used the lightest shade in Kat Von D Lock-It Foundation and mixed in
that eyeshadow and upon applying it to the face it gave me the look I
originally imagined! I think finding a full coverage foundation in the
lightest possible shade was the key, this one being as literal white as a
foundation could be. Sure, you could easily go and purchase something
like MAC Chromacake in "pure white" and mix it with other Chromacake
colors to get the same appearance, but I like to try my best to use what
I have on hand. Thankfully I had this Kat Von D Foundation in my
freelance kit to use on my fairer-skinned clients.
Day 2
This
look was all over a bit of a mess and challenge to work around, but in
the end I'm happy with what I came up with. I was inspired by this
season of American Horror Story and the creepy clown masks that appear
frequently that tend to have holes in them to trigger the mysterious but
fairly common "trypophobia". When I originally envisioned this look I
planned on creating prosthetic pieces to give myself a large nose,
emphasized cheeks, and to make the holes more—well, holey. Unfortunately
I have an allergy to latex and sensitivity to any adhesives I've ever
tried. Upon adhering the first few pieces to my face I immediately broke
out in hives and red scaly areas. Having to rely solely on makeup to
give this look the same creepy feel was the biggest challenge, but I was
able to shift the focus from what I originally planned to be the holes
in my face, to the mouth. Considering the fact that I accidentally
scared a good handful of people that day and all of them telling me it
was the mouth/teeth, I'd say I overcame that challenge pretty well and
achieved my goal—all with just makeup!
Day 3
The
last day was Halloween. This was definitely the simplest look and not
exactly how I imagined my Halloween day makeup to go but my challenge
here was my time crunch. The day of Halloween I had to be at work by 8
in the morning as I did the makeup of two of my managers. With any and
all full-face Halloween makeup look I like to give myself at least a
good solid two hours for application and completion. Considering I have
to leave my house a good hour before my shift starts in order to make it
on time, I really wasn't about to wake up at 5am to do makeup. So, I
started the day off as if it was any other day. Gave myself the same
amount of time that I would to do my very simple every day natural look,
which is about half an hour, and wanted to see what I could come up
with given that small amount of time. It's nothing fancy in my opinion
and in comparison to what I've done in the past, and most certainly
nothing original, but I was given a very large amount of compliments! A
little bit of glitter on the teeth and inner corner of the eye spiced
the whole look up a bit and made it feel a little more glamorous than
what it was, and I was able to prove to myself that I can pull together
something impressive even in only a small amount of time. I even had a
client schedule a makeover with me that day because she wanted me to do
the very same look for her!
It's
unfortunate that I wasn't able to bring myself to do a full week of
this like I would have any other year, but in the end I learned new
things and still ended up with three solid looks. Though there's a whole
year until next Halloween I've already started thinking of new ideas
and I'm excited to continuously try new things and see what I can come
up with next year!
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