Special Effects Makeup

Ah, Valentine’s Day. The day where we celebrate a saint (or saints) who may (or may not) have existed, and a fat baby with wings who uses humans as target practice to hone his bow hunting skills.

Of course, it’s great for the economy as well. It’s a little known fact that St. Valentine was actually the patron saint of showing affection through a waste of money. In fact, there used to be a festival where young lovers would set fire to their money and other possessions to show how much they loved each other. The more you burned, the more you loved. Thankfully, Hallmark and Hershey came up with a better way to celebrate. (None of that’s true, except for the economy part.)

Still, we always look for ways to celebrate beheaded saints that maybe existed and homicidal baby angels. How will I do that today?

Makeup! But not just any makeup…

BLOODY makeup!

 

Please enjoy the following tutorial for this bloody Valentine’s celebration on my face.

The hearts are prosthetics that will (hopefully) be reusable. These need to be made ahead of time, because they take a long time to dry. You could technically do this right on your skin a few different ways…but I’m not patient enough to wait for things to dry on my skin.

Using liquid latex, “draw” some heart shapes on a piece of wax paper with the handle of a makeup brush, or one of those wooden thingies from manicure sets. I just use it as-is, but if you’re concerned that you won’t be able to get it to match your skin when it’s dry, you can mix it with some foundation in your skin color. It will look something like this.

You may have to go over them a couple of times as they firm up to build them up so they’re thick enough to peel off without tearing when they’re dry. Check on them every so often, and once they’re tacky, but not all-the-way-dry, take a toothpick or your wooden thingy and “scoop” out a track along the inside of the hearts.

Then let them dry over night. Once they’re dry there should be some thin parts in the heart outline.

Cut some of the thinner parts out. I like to cut out as much as possible without the heart losing its shape (or just becoming two separate pieces).

From here, you want to stick them on your face using more liquid latex, then apply your foundation. Obviously don’t do this if you’re allergic to latex. Or foundation. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that…but it’s the internet, so you never know.

Now, when I first thought of doing this, I was going to do the entire look using only blood. Fake blood, of course. You can’t prove otherwise.

But I decided to go with a little more dimension than you can get with just blood…and I also wanted an excuse to use my Sabrina palette. Yes, I’m a grown woman who watches shows about witches in high school. No, I don’t care what you think about it.

For the eyes, I based it out using ‘Hell on Earth’, added ‘Unholy Union’ to the outer third or so of the lids and extended it for a wing. I blended the inside corners and brow line with ‘Eternal Bliss.’ And I used tape, even though a lot of people say not to. I’m unskilled. Deal with it.

I suppose if, for some weird reason, you didn’t want your Valentine’s makeup to include blood, you could skip the prosthetic, tone the wing down, add some regular blush, lipstick, and mascara, then stop at this point. But why wouldn’t you want to add blood? Especially when I’m about to show you the greatest fake blood that has ever existed in the entire history of fake blood.

The great thing about this blood is that you can make it whatever consistency you want, and it looks super real.  It also stays on better than any blood I’ve used before. It can stain though. A lot. So, be careful of that.

I mixed it into a kind of jelly consistency, but then after I took the picture below, I added a little more water so it was part congealed goo, and part viscous ooze. Both terms scream “Valentine’s Day,” right?

From here, I stopped taking pictures as often as I probably should have for a good tutorial. But essentially what I did was to add a messy top wing with the blood (all my wings are messy…but that actually works for this type of look). Then I dabbed the blood under my eyes, and textured it over the rest of my eye shadow.

From there, I added blood to the heart prosthetics, making sure to get the chunky congealed bits into the parts I cut open earlier.

I also added the blood on and around my lips. Full disclosure, I have no idea whether or not this is safe, so I advise you to follow the instructions on your blood package before doing this. Don’t throw the packaging away so you have no instructions. Like I did. And don’t do this if the package says it’s unsafe.

So, there you have it. Just in case Valentine’s Day wasn’t Halloween enough for you. Now I’m off to spend the weekend watching some of the many brilliant Valentine’s Day inspired horror movies.

 

Do you have any fun ways to turn Valentine’s Day into winter Halloween? I’d love to hear them!