Even though Halloween is technically over and Christmas lights are starting to light up London, I figured that some of you may still be going to spooky parties this evening, and if not there’s always the next fancy dress party just around the corner. For Halloween this year I decided to skip buying the usual pre-packaged (and incredibly cheap quality yet seriously overpriced) costumes off the rack and go all DIY. My boyfriend and I like to couple dress- not to be cutesy, but to make more of an impact. As he was away for a couple of days at a tech conference in Ireland and we only decided that we were actually going to go to a party on Tuesday, I had two days on my own to figure out both of our costumes.
I had a few ideas that all required far too much effort- I wont be sharing those ideas because maybe next Halloween we’ll be a little more organised! The day of the dead idea is something which has always appealed to me, the spookiness mixed in with the religious and cultural notions all bundled into one seriously cool and colourful costume idea. I started by google imaging until I found some good YouTube tutorials for face paint.
As my boyfriend point blank refused to wear face paint I bought a plane white felt mask instead, traced the design in pencil and then went over it with black and red Sharpies. For my face I used a Lancome illuminator all over and set it with a Collection 2000 white powder to give myself a ghoulish glow- hell no was I clogging my skin with white face paint! I then used black Rimmel eyeliner to outline the eye sockets, scallops, mouth and the flower detailing on my forehead as well as a cross on my forehead and some swirls around my cheeks and MAC Lady Danger lipstick and blue and orange face paint pencils (£2.50!) to colour it all in. To give my eyes the appearance of looking darker in the centre I lined my lids with Rimmel Scandaleyes Shadow Stick in Blackmail and then coloured the rest of the socket in with L’Oreal Infallible eyeshadow in Eternal Black- there’s also a hint of glitter in the shadow to make it look eery.
I bought a plain headband with just a few flowers on from ASOS and then bought individual flowers from Claire’s to make it more dramatic. A simple black tube dress from H&M and a cross necklace from Primark completed my look (asides from a pair of old fishnets and some Louboutin’s!) and for Ivan, a cherry red cape and black sombrero over a plane white shirt and black trousers gave all the impact we needed! Although I loved my own makeup the mask was the star of the show with people on the streets of London actually recoiling and screaming as they saw him! I’m quite proud of that 🙂 mwahahah