MACABRE MAKEUP: THE VAMPIRE

MATERIALS

White, black, and gray greasepaint
Vampire teeth available at most costume shops
Black eyebrow pencil
Stage blood

1. Grease your hair back, if you have hair (if you don’t, you can wear a rubber wig bought for a few dollars at a makeup store). Add some thin blue lines for the effect of pronounced veins. ¹

2. Give your face a base coat of greasepaint. Start with white, but add a little bit of another color to make the results unearthly. Gray will do for this, but you might decide to go with green, which, believe it or not, was the actual color of Béla Lugosi’s make-up in the original Dracula. Dab your face with the white greasepaint, and then add dabs of the second color, blending them together with your fingers until your face, neck, and ears are completely covered.

3. Use your second color, gray or green, to add shadows. You want to darken your temples and under your cheekbones — the intention here is to give a hollow, cadaverous look. Blend the shadows in with a brush or with your fingertips.

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Photography by Jason Forman; makeup by Aurora Bergere

4. Shadow your eyes, to give them a sunken, skull-like look. Begin by placing black greasepaint on your upper and lower lids, keeping it very dark around the hollows of your eyes. Blend more the farther away you get from the eyes, and stop where the hollows of your eye sockets end. Then set the greasepaint. Pat a pale or neutral powder onto your face and neck. Clean off the ³ excess with a cotton ball or powder puff. This will set the greasepaint, so that you don’t need to worry about it smearing, coming off on your clothes (although always use caution with makeup and clothes), or sweating off.

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5. Thicken your eyebrows. Use your eyebrow pencil to add very small lines, which should look like additional hairs, along the top of your natural eyebrow. Make it as thick as you think looks terrifying, and as shaggy as you like. Additionally, traditional vampire makeup tends toward wickedly arched brows.

Make: Halloween 29