How to Choose Face Paint

Series Summary

Face painting has a long and illustrious history in state fairs, theme parks, and summer camps. You'll be hard-pressed to find a child who has not had their face painted at some point in their young lives or who would turn away the opportunity. It is amazing how face painting never gets old and how endless the possibilities are for face painting designs. From butterflies, peacocks, leopards, flags, cats, and dogs, you can paint anything that comes to mind. If you would like to learn how to face paint and create your own designs, here's your chance to learn the crafts from an expert!

In this free arts and crafts video series, learn face painting from body art specialist Stacy Parzik. She will give you tips for getting started with face painting, what brushes you should buy, and what paint to buy. Learn how to paint around the eyes, how to add glitter to your face paint, how to add jewels to your face painting design, how to add detail to your face painting motif, how to use a face painting marker, how to face paint with a sponge. Let creativity abound from your brush as you develop your face painting skills and paint new creative designs.

Video Transcript

"Hi, we're going to talk about paints because if you're going to be a face painter, the first thing you're going to need are the proper paints to use. Now it's been told that you could go to a craft supply store or an art supply store and pretty much buy any paint in a bottle or tube that?s labeled "Nontoxic". This actually is not recommended for face painting. Unfortunately nontoxic just means that it's safe to eat or won't really harm you if you eat it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe to be put on the skin. Paint that's safe to be put on the skin will be labeled makeup. That means that it has ingredients that have been tested and approved by the government, by the FDA for use on skin. Craft paints might have ingredients such as dyes or preservatives such as formaldehyde that is not something that you would want to put on your own face, let alone a child's sensitive skin. It's really important to find something that has FDA approved ingredients. Luckily, they're widely available. You can find them on the Internet, you can also find them in makeup and beauty supply stores, and they come in many, many different forms. You can experiment and find out what form you like best. This is a liquid paint, like I said it says makeup right on it, this one right here is a powder form. It can be used either dry, goes on very smoothly or you can wet it to make more of a paste form. These right here are a paste form of paint, you just wet your brush with a little bit of water, it goes on nice and smoothly. This is probably the most popular form of face paint, and there are several different brands you can choose from that are all safe to use and widely available. Here is another example of a pallet that's in a cake form. There's also some that are in kind of a gel form that can squeeze on. There are also paints that come in a crayon or a stick form, which are great for beginners and also great if you happen to be trying to face paint in a large costume. You have a little bit more control over it. What I would suggest is go out, I wouldn't spend a lot of money. Buy one, maybe two colors of each type of paint, get your brush out and just practice on your arm or your leg and see what form you're most comfortable with. Then you can stock up in that form and you'll be ready to go."