My brother manages a restaurant in Charleston, SC that turns in to a haunted house every Halloween. For the first time ever I'll be visiting at just the right time to attend. Having a background in makeup though, I've been roped in to helping out. Back in high school I played around with some theatrical makeup, but after that it was strictly beauty makeup for me. It's been years since I've done anything even close to the Freddy Krueger-esque burns he wanted me to do on their bartenders. Since I was offered a bar tab in exchange for my help I was determined to try. And to help you try to save yourselves some time and money with your Halloween costuming (makeup can make or break a costume) I thought I'd share the results. I promise to offer more than just making a good burn so there's plenty of other advice here for all your scary makeup needs.
I spent some time browsing the Halloween stores trying to figure out what to do, and more importantly, how to do it. I'm not a huge fan of latex or spirit gum as they can both cause reactions on the skin. I still kind of remember my way around liquid latex so I bought a tube of that to play with. There were a bunch of extremely expensive pre-made prosthetics, but they required spirit gum (which can be really irritating) to attach them, and I'd still have to use latex to blend them into the skin. Knowing that some poor girls were going to have to serve drinks in this stuff all night made me a little wary of going with those. I'd also have to spend upwards of $50 for something that wouldn't even look that realistic without some extra doctoring.
So as any sane person would do I turned to the internet. I found some sort of helpful DIY sites, but they lacked detail, or were much more intricate than I was going for. This didn't need to be good enough for a movie, but I wanted it to look passable for drunks in a dark bar. Unfortunately, the liquid latex from the Halloween store was garbage. I did find several websites that showed how to use plain gelatin to produce a much better effect. I can't speak to how colored (flavored) gelatin works, but the plain stuff did well for me. I think clear is better anyway since you want your skin to show through in some places (especially if it's a fresh burn). I never found instructions on a proper mixture online so I had to do some trial to get it right. I found that you get a fast drying thicker consistency using twice as much gelatin as called for. As in, the gelatin instructions said 1 packet to 1/4 cup water so I used 2 packets.
![]() |
first layer, and a good style brush to use |
![]() |
Four layers, and already kinda cool |
![]() |
Pieces picked away, and color added |
![]() |
those died up edges are what the vaseline is for |
![]() |
why I said you should keep your skin loose for this type |
![]() |
see, joke zombies are blue and grey |
The last best piece of advice I can give for your Halloween makeup horror is to buy a halfway decent makeup kit at the Halloween store (mine was $10), and go nuts. There is shit in your cupboard and closets that can take your costume to the next level with minimal cost, and just a tiny bit of effort. Now to figure out what I'm going to do with 20 packets of unflavored gelatin. People like horse hoof flavored jello shots right?
Beth
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com. Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
Beth
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com. Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
No comments:
Post a Comment