Halloween Tutorial Special: We'll Have You Shrieking in Fear Like a Banshee

Happy (almost) Halloween Beaut.ies! It's my favourite time of year for makeup (as you may know from my Marie Antoinette look last year), so this year I'm going more traditional, and with good reason.

Obviously, we are all wonderfully free to choose whatever costume we want for Halloween, but I'm sick to the teeth of 'sexy' and gendered costumes. I don't WANT to be a sexy nun, or a sexy goldilocks, or a sexy carrot. Women are judged for their looks every minute of every day, and Halloween is the one day that I can make myself as pug fugly as I want and STILL get compliments. So I'm going straight up ugly this year. Hurrah!

We're a proud Irish website, so I'm going to be a proud Irish (ugly) Banshee! The look is actually very simple, but looks quite impressive. Marie Antoinette was great fun, but that look involved latex and other things that the average Halloween party-goer might not be comfortable with. So here's what you'll need to Banshee yourself and have a scream doing it!

• White makeup, either a foundation (I'm using Mac studio fix full coverage white foundation) or face paint. I recommend Snazaroo; it's widely available)
• Pritt Stick, you'll see why
• A black gel or other smudgy eyeliner/ cream shadow
• A grey matte eyeshadow
• A black matte eyeshadow
• A naff grey/white wig (I got mine for €7 in Tiger). Alternately, you can put talcum powder in your hair

Step One

• Right 'o! Cleanse and moisturise your face as normal if you're using white foundation. Don't moisturise if using face paint. Buff the white colour all over the face and neck. If you look like you died of pneumonia two days ago, you're on the right track. Lovely. Make sure to cover the whole face and neck, and don't forget your ears!

Step Two

•  Grab your Pritt stick and run it over your brows in the direction of your hair growth to blank them out. It's perfectly safe to use on your skin and will wash off easily with normal makeup remover. Just stick to pritt - not every glue is safe to use or will wash off!
• Cover the brows with your white makeup. They'll show through a bit, but don't worry. You won't notice them later.
• Now, Banshees have a reputation for being cranky but I think they're just misunderstood. I figure that they're actually quite sad since they have such a crappy job and no access to hair straighteners, so I'm making my Banshee sad.
• For that reason I'm drawing a line with my eyeliner down through the brow (as in the photo above left) an arcing it around under my eye to make sure I look good and tired as well as miserable.

Step Three

• Take a fine liner brush and draw some fine lines under the eyes, as in the picture.
• Grab a clean blending brush and any matte grey eyeshadow and fill in the shape you've made, blending the shadow to prevent harsh lines and making your lines as deep as possible. Leave the eyelids white. Then, grab a matte black shadow on the same brush and use it to deepen the shadows. So blend it into the inner corners and under your natural brow, as well as under the eye.
• Buff it under the eye along the original line you created to make the eyes look more tired and sunken. Eh, sexy tired and sunken...
• Take your liner again and create some lines between nose and mouth - this banshee has a lived-in face. She does a lot of howling. Blend the lines with a little eyeshadow to give them a realistic look. Take your time with it. You can add lines wherever you think they should go. If you need a guide, do a big false smile (the one you do when your granny used to give you a jumper for Christmas) and use the natural lines as a guide!

Step Four

• You'll need a gob to howl with, so blot out your lips with the white foundation, the grab your liner again and outline a mouth. Any shape you're in the mood for is fine. Give it some lips and draw in some teeth. My Banshee has sharp teeth. Fill in the empty space with your black liner for a permanent shriek!
• Again, take your time with this step.

Step Five

• You'll need some sunken cheekbones, so draw a rough outline with eyeliner and blend with your grey eyeshadow until you're happy with the effect. You can follow the natural line of your cheekbone for a guide. Poke around with your thumb to find the dip in your cheek if you're having trouble locating it by eye.
• Blend blend blend until there are no hard lines and add some black shadow to increase the recessed effect.
• Next, to the neck! Again with your liner, outline the deep scraggly neck lines. You can flex your neck to see where the connective tissue is, and draw the lines along it. BLEND!!
• Also, add some lines to the forehead - this Banshee doesn't moisturise! Scrunch your face and just draw over the natural lines, blending them as you go

Step Five

• Take a look at your work so far and go back in wherever you think you need touch ups. I've given the mouth a little more attention, adding some white to the teeth and filling in the lips a bit. I've also contoured the nose a touch with grey shadow, and given her some lip wrinkles.

Step Six

• Bewig yourself! And have fun being ugly. It really is very liberating!

What d'you think? And what are you doing this Halloween? To the comments!