In Focus

It’s my favorite time of year—Halloween!

When people are shopping for new Halloween decor, I’m shopping for new house decor. I love my dark, spooky trinkets and my collection of skulls. It makes my little goth heart happy.

I have also amassed quite a collection of Halloween makeup and supplies over the years, which has come in handy lately. I haven’t planned a costume in the past few years as I typically work to cover Halloween events, and my costumes rarely are child-friendly. 

This year was the first time I could go all out and do something fun for myself. I had about a week to figure something out. Finding a few items, I decided to go with a demon as I had the horns for it. I knew it would be a red demon, but I wasn’t about to paint my face plain red and call it a day.

I browsed the web for ideas, and everyone was doing something more glamorous. Not for me. I came up with the idea of a decaying demon, flesh rotting off, exposing parts of the skeleton underneath. Because, why not? 

Of course, my ideas don’t always translate how I think they will, and I didn’t give myself enough time. I should have made the latex pieces the night before, but I didn’t. I used liquid latex and cotton balls to make a few small spikes on my forehead and gross-looking cheeks. I was layering on liquid latex dab, with a tissue to give more texture, and glued on pointed ears. I had to let it dry before going over it all with makeup. 

I traced the outline of my design with an eyeliner pencil and painted the red, black, and white bases with grease paint. Details were added with eye shadows and liquid eyeliner and set with copious amounts of setting powder.

Three hours later, I was ready to hit the town with a friend and had a ton of fun! It has been a long time since I went bar-hopping. 

Taking the makeup off is another task. First, I had to remove the horns, then the ears, peel off the cotton and tissue paper, and hop in the shower, as the sink wasn’t big enough to contain the mess. This paint is challenging to get off. It lasted all night without any issues; that said, you can’t just use plain water to remove it.

I resorted to bar soap to rub it directly on the skin to remove the main part. I used castor oil to help remove the majority of it and back to bar soap to get the oils off. I removed about 95 percent of it in the shower which surprised me. I used more castor oil to finish the task, and added copious amounts of lotion and castor oil to help repair my skin.

Oil works for stubborn makeup; you can use castor, olive, coconut or baby oil, especially around the eyes. And waterproof liquid eyeliner has much more staying power than most black lipsticks. Only two spots below my eyes were irritated, which was also surprising because I have sensitive skin.

It was all worth it since I won the costume contest! 

Halloween is fantastic, and it’s the final week of the Halloween Light Show which starts at 6:30 p.m. It will be your last chance to see this for the season!