Every October, Halloween gives an excuse to unleash your spooky side and experiment with makeup that goes beyond the everyday look. But creating a head-turning look doesn’t necessarily require a professional kit or a bag full of products. Sometimes, a few everyday essentials, a steady hand and a little imagination are all that you need. Bengaluru-based makeup enthusiasts share their inspirations and tips to help you get started.
Fashion content creator Ananya Babu has always been drawn to makeup that unsettles people, looks that are almost too disturbing to look at, yet compel you to take a closer look. This Halloween, her nail-through-skin illusion explores just that, using gore, texture and realism to blur the line between illusion and reality.
Inspiration: Babu began exploring special effects (SFX) makeup during the pandemic, learning techniques through YouTube tutorials and experimenting at home. She enjoys creating unsettling effects from scratch rather than relying entirely on ready-made prosthetics. Each look takes her around three to five hours to complete. “I love exploring how far makeup can go in blurring the line between illusion and reality. For me, SFX makeup is about creating a reaction, whether that’s shock, discomfort or simply the disbelief that something like this can be created using makeup,” she says.
How to try it: Start by exploring SFX techniques through tutorials and experimenting with textures. Babu has used everyday ingredients such as flour, Vaseline and beetroot in her experiments. However, improvised ingredients should not be used near the eyes or on torn skin; use skin-safe products designed for special effects.
Looks from TV: Give Cinderella’s look a darker makeover by imagining what happens after the fairytale ends. Babu suggests faded, ethereal colours and a cracked-glass illusion to make it appear as if the magic is slowly falling apart.
Mixing spookiness and glam together to bring out a ‘pretty scary’ look is in the charts. Fashion and lifestyle content creator Ramya Manur’s creepy clown look combines dramatic eyes, an exaggerated smile and a playful, slightly unhinged aesthetic.
Inspiration: Manur drew inspiration from a clown look that balances pretty makeup with a sinister edge.
How to try it: Start with your regular base. Use red lipstick to draw two lines down the face and fill the space between them with white eyeshadow. Build up the eyes using black kohl and eyeshadow, then extend the smile over the white base for a creepy clown effect.
Looks from TV: She suggests a Harley Quinn-inspired look. “Start with a pale base, smudge red and blue eyeshadow around the eyes and add a bold red lip and a tiny heart on the cheek. Finish with messy blonde pigtails and a red-and-blue outfit to complete the transformation,” she notes.
Who says Halloween makeup always has to be spooky? This high-fashion-inspired look combines contrasting colours, textures and a touch of old-world glamour to make a statement.
Inspiration: Celebrity makeup artist Rashida Pavthiwala created a look inspired by high-street fashion, the look plays with red and blue, two contrasting colours on the colour wheel. Mesh detailing across the face adds texture, while sleek finger waves bring together vintage aesthetics and contemporary high fashion.
How to try it: Experiment with contrasting red and blue makeup, add graphic detailing and incorporate mesh for a textured effect. Style your hair in sleek finger waves to complete the look.
Trending now: “As a finishing touch add glittery, icy lips adorned with crystal particles which are another trend to experiment with this season. Imagine a sugary crystals coating a lollipop, translated into a statement lip look,” Pavthiwala suggests.
Sometimes, all it takes to create something eerie is the willingness to experiment. Fashion content creator Meenakshi Krishnesh’s two Halloween looks move between gothic glamour and horror, proving that a dramatic transformation need not involve specialised products.
Inspiration: Krishnesh’s look features a pale face, dramatic black eyes and dark lips, while the other leans into horror with red tones, smudged makeup and a bloodied, Joker-inspired smile.
How to try it: For the gothic look, use a pale base, set it with white eyeshadow and add black eyeliner, eyeshadow and kajal to define the eyes and lips. For a more horror-inspired look, experiment with red eyeshadow, smudged eyeliner and an exaggerated smile. A glossy red lip colour can add to the bloodied effect.
Looks from TV: Krishnesh recommends recreating Nikki from Obsession, combining glamorous makeup with gory details. “I love the combination of glamorous, sexy makeup with gory horror, and the scene where she smashes a bottle against her face and snaps back into her possessed state would be such a cool look to recreate,” she says.