Good Halloween makeup is not about artistry. It is about understanding two things: skin is not one colour, and wounds have depth. Get those and a beginner can produce something better than most shop-bought masks.
Everything below is in Makeup & SFX.
What you actually need
The starter kit is short:
- Cream face paint in white, grey, black and a sallow yellow-green
- Setting powder — translucent, any brand
- Fake blood, ideally two kinds (see below)
- A stipple sponge — the coarse, open-textured one. This single cheap item does more work than anything else you own
- Liquid latex or scar wax for anything three-dimensional
- Brushes: one flat, one small round. Old ones are fine
You do not need an airbrush, a 48-colour palette, or professional prosthetics. Those are for people doing this weekly.
The rule that changes everything
Beginners paint a face one flat colour. Real skin — living or dead — is blotchy, and the blotches are what sell it.
Never apply one colour evenly. Put down a pale base, then stipple grey-green into the hollows: under the eyes, temples, the sides of the nose, under the cheekbones, along the jaw. Then a touch of purple or deep red in the deepest recesses. The face should look uneven, because faces are.
Squint at your work. If it reads as a single mask-like tone, add more variation.
Wounds: depth, then colour
A wound painted flat on the skin looks painted on. A wound with an edge looks like a wound.
1. Build the edge. Scar wax or a few layers of liquid latex (dried between coats with a hairdryer on cool), feathered at the outside so there is no visible border. 2. Open it. Split the latex or wax with the wrong end of a brush. The opening should be irregular — real tissue does not tear in straight lines. 3. Darken the inside. Deep red-brown at the centre, almost black in the deepest part. This is what creates the illusion of depth. 4. Bruise the outside. Purple and yellow-green stippled around the edge, fading out. Injuries do not have crisp boundaries. 5. Blood last, and less than you think.
Two kinds of blood
This is the detail that separates convincing from cartoonish.
Fresh blood is bright, glossy and runs. Use it sparingly at the wound itself and let gravity take it — blood runs down, always, so work out where the wound is and let it fall correctly. Blood that runs sideways is the giveaway.
Dried blood is dark, matte and brown-red. Use it on clothing, around the mouth, on the hands. Most beginners use only fresh blood everywhere, which is why their zombie looks like it has been in an accident thirty seconds ago rather than three weeks ago.
Making it last
You will be somewhere warm, crowded and probably damp for six hours. Untreated cream makeup will be gone by nine.
- Powder between every layer. Cream, powder, cream, powder. Tedious, essential.
- Setting spray at the end.
- Do not touch your face. You will forget this within an hour.
- Take a small touch-up kit — a sponge and your darkest colour will fix most of it in a pub mirror.
Before you cover your face in latex
Patch test, twenty-four hours ahead, on the inside of the forearm. Latex allergy is real and Halloween night is a poor time to discover it. Latex-free alternatives exist if you react.
Keep everything well clear of the eyes, and use only products sold as cosmetics — craft paint is not for skin.
Removal: oil first. Micellar water or coconut oil will lift cream makeup and latex far better than soap, which mostly just spreads it.
One more thing about scare mazes
If you are wearing this to one of the scream parks in our directory, check the venue's rules first. Several restrict full-face masks and anything that obscures vision — and elaborate makeup plus fog, heat and a hundred people is a recipe for it sliding off your chin by the second maze.
The scream park guide covers what to wear in more detail.