Glam Halloween Looks That You Can Wear Year Round
I'm going to possibly overshare my private bafflement about a topic: gory Halloween makeup doesn't resonate with me whatsoever.
The most popular YouTube results for "Halloween makeup" display beauty gurus with slashed necks, half-burned faces, brutally sewn-closed mouths, scissor-stabbed eyes, blunt trauma wounds, layers of skin pulled back: I mean! You know this, I don't have to tell you.
(EDIT: Or maybe I do, oh my god, what if it's just MY YouTube algorithm results and ... yours are like cute costume-y tutorials!!? If so, please continue reading this irrelevant material.)
I'll (briefly) watch tutorials of mauled faces with a dumbfounded sense of being an outsider, and while I'm full of admiration for the prosthetic techniques involved, there's a synapse misfiring in my brain which fails to connect why anyone in their lifetime would want to look like a very sad ER case.
In my view, modern Halloween has less to do with tragic deformation and more to do with with imaginative transformation.
If you're also not stoked about wearing copious layers of special effects makeup to a party, below are my favorite Halloween makeup ideas:
1. Bond Girl, Eva Green by Pixiwoo:
Wait until you see how she does the eyebrows.
2. Game of Thrones Daenerys:
This tutorial is by the on-set makeup artist who does Emilia Clarke's makeup for the show.
I've never seen an episode of GoT (I'm too busy watching reruns of Family Guy, which is of course made by Seth MacFarlane, who dated Emilia Clarke for a while, so there's that connection), and yet I saved this video to a makeup playlist because the artist's techniques are fascinating and the outcome is beautiful.
3. Kandee Johnson's Everyday Princess Series:
Kandee glamorously translates cartoon beauty into flattering makeup.
4. Marilyn Monroe by Lisa Eldridge:
Not your average M.M. tutorial. Lisa published an incredible history of makeup book (a really good gift for your nerdy friends who equally love makeup). Her research included the techniques Monroe's makeup artist Allan Snyder employed, which Eldridge recreates in the below step-by-step.
5. Marie Antoinette by Lisa Eldridge:
A historically interesting tutorial about how Marie Antoinette accomplished her toilette.
6. Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club by Pixiwoo:
An old school tutorial by Pixiwoo, so the video quality is dated, but you still get the gist, and she uses a streamlined kit of affordable products.
7. Cat Woman - The Feline Flick by Charlotte Tilbury:
I return to this tutorial for a variety of occasions. It's a bold, confidence-boosting eye without being too heavy.
8. Kristen Stewart Rock 'n' Roll Apocalypse by Jamie Greenberg:
Showcased by the makeup artist who did Kristen Stewart's makeup for a Rolling Stones music video, this is the reference for how to create a dynamic dark eye that's equally glam and grunge.
9. Brigitte Bardot on Claudia Schiffer by Lisa Eldridge:
I've previously shared a list of my favorite Brigitte Bardot makeup tutorials on the Internet, however Lisa Eldridge recently interpreted the Bardot look on Claudia Schiffer and it's worthy of the Best Bardot Looks:
Concluding Thoughts on Witches
I hope I haven't sounded like a Puritan grumbling about the wonderfully bizarre manifestations of Halloween. I love that we celebrate this weird and exuberant holiday. If you want to look like a straight-up corpse on Halloween, good for you - and based on (my? yours also hopefully?) search results, you're in the majority.
That said, in 2017 countries are still prosecuting women for being witches - my takeaway being that women don't need to look like a horror show to frighten others (*cough* closer to home, the crusade against women's access to health services is a led by a very scared crowd of men who are shaking in their pants watching women's ascendency in the world).
You and me just being women is super scary to almost half the population of the world. So why not look bewitchingly hot while we're at it?