How to Apply Dracula Makeup

Once upon a time parents made their children's costumes for Halloween, and everyone had more fun anticipating the big day and finally donning the costume and acting silly for a few hours. Those days can be recaptured with a few supplies, some old clothes and---most importantly---some time to share. Fashion a black cape with a tall cardboard-stiffened collar, make a fake medallion hung on a red ribbon, add a bow tie and paint your little (or big) Dracula's face using some simple tricks of your own.

Things You'll Need

• Creme makeup in white ("clown white"), green, red and black
• Skin cleanser (Albolene or other cold cream)
• Small "liner" brushes
• Flat toothpicks
• Talc or colorless face powder and powder brush
• Black hair spray
• OPTIONAL:
• Black liner pencil
• Vampire teeth
• Red lipstick

Instructions

1. Scrub Dracula's face with a cleansing cream to moisturize the skin. Work the cream up into the hair line and cove the neck and ears, too. Wipe all of it off with paper tissues.

2. Prepare a base or foundation of clown white tinted with a little black (to make gray) or green for a pallid base. Smooth the base all around the face with a sponge or your fingers, starting from the center and working up into the hair line, down around the neck, and around and behind the ears. Smooth the base on thinly but evenly so that it won't cake or run. Be sure to get it on the eyelids and ears, too.

3. Contour the face. Use a dark gray to make a light smudge on each side of the face, just under the cheek bone toward the front of the face. Then drop a shadow down from the lowest point of the cheek (behind the ridge of flesh along the "laugh line") to just above the jaw. Blend the edges down and back until they join in a shadow, making the sides of the face look gaunt. Don't make them too dark---they'll look like triangles if they're not blended completely. Put shadows at the temples, too.

4. Detail the eyes and forehead using narrow eyeliner brushes, toothpicks or eyeliner pencils. Draw a light black line across the upper eyelid just where it breaks under the eyelashes, ending in a downward flourish at the outer corner of the eye. Then have your subject turn his head back and look "up and back" and lightly add a second line under the eye. Put a little dot of red on the skin at the inner corner of the eye. Have Dracula wrinkle his forehead and add light gray lines, blended to form shadows.

5. Finish the face. Add lipstick only if it's real red (no fashion shades). Or use the red creme and paint thin red lips with a brush. Drops of red "blood" applied with a toothpick are optional. When finished, blow a little powder on the face to set the creme---blow or lightly brush off the excess, taking care not to smudge with the brush. Spray hair with black hair spray and add sideburns with an eyebrow pencil. Draw highly arched brows that stop just a bit short of where the natural eyebrows (which are covered with base) end. Add a splash of green eye shadow on the ridge of the brow under each eyebrow and blend lightly. Silly vampire teeth are optional.

Tips & Warnings

• A little petroleum jelly slicks back hair and keeps it shiny. If your Dracula's a blonde or redhead, use highlights rather than black hair spray--it's hard to wash out of light hair.

• Be careful working around eyes with pencils and brushes--touch lightly to avoid setting off reflex squinting.

References

• Costume and Makeup, Carmen Schein, Instructor, The American University

Resources

• More Face Painting Ideas
• Halloween Resouces