6 Ways to Use Your Leftover Halloween Makeup for the Rest of the Year

Here at the Vogue.com office, our dedication to planning the ultimate Halloween costume has been a weeks-long elaborate affair. Admittedly, this means we may have gone a bit overboard when acquiring tubes, pans, and palettes of theatrical makeup in a wild rainbow of impractical colors. But now that the festivities are nearly over, we’re faced with an important issue: What are we supposed to do with all of our leftover Halloween makeup after tonight? That’s why, in the quest to prevent the gorgeous greens of a new zombie palette from lying fallow for the next 364 days, we spoke to two makeup artists about the best ways to utilize your barely used fake blood and face paints.

Alice Lane is known for her fantastical approach to the everyday. Unsurprisingly, her take on Halloween beauty is one that encourages experimentation for the rest of the year. “[It] is not just one night,” says Lane of dipping into high-shine metallics and glitter on an anytime, anywhere basis. “You can be expressive and excited every day.” And you don’t have to moonlight as a Disney princess to make use of your newfound tool kit. According to Kristi Matamoros, many extreme pigments are shockingly real-world wearable when sheered out or repurposed as a focused jolt of color. With that in mind, here are some pro makeup tips and tricks to tide you over until next October.

Fake Blood Makes the Best Cheek Stain
Lane swears that fake blood is an easy way to give a natural-looking flush to the skin. Matamoros, who is a fan of Screenface Blood, agrees: She suggests using a dab of coagulated blood to make the cheeks look windburned. “It’s balmy enough to give a real effect, with real shine,” she says of its specific and believable skin-like finish.

Unconventional Colors Can Be Everyday Wearable
“Deep purple lipsticks exist, but the reddish-mauve shades in a ‘bruise’ palette make [especially] great lip colors,” says Matamoros, who credits their brownish undertones for their perfect pitch. “Plus, they’re dry, so the color doesn’t go on shiny.”

Equally out-of-the-box shades, like the greens in Kryolan’s Zombie Wheel, can also be used as eyeshadow. And Make Up For Ever’s Rusty Brown cream color paints—more often used to approximate a feline tone on Halloween night—“is amazing on the eyes,” says Matamoros. “The Lion King uses it in their production [on Broadway] and orders hundreds of thousands of them.”

If you’re not looking to go that far outside the traditional color spectrum, the company also makes a bright, beautiful doll-ish pink that you can use on your cheeks. “If you buff it in, it can be soft and romantic,” she says.

Grease Paint Is the New Smoky Eye
Beyond your Mad Max costume, “grease paint has a lot of possibilities with creating textures,” says Matamoros. “I like to use it for a smoky eye. It’s cooler than a traditional [powder]—the more broken up and [messy] it gets, the better.”

Glitter Is for Day and for Night
Lane believes in the transformative power of glitter year-round. “It makes you feel good!” she says of spontaneously patting a bit on her face “like pixie dust.” Matamoros, too, reaches for tiny specks of gold sparkle to “add some shine and make your look really ethereal.” On eyelids and lash lines, gilded formulas from Make Up For Ever and Ricky’s flash in the light.

Black Lipstick Makes a Modern Statement
If Rihanna’s recent experiments with the ’90s lip color weren’t enough, both Lane and Matamoros also believe that black lipstick can work year-round. “Try it!” says Lane of using the same inky pigment needed to approximate your Vampira-inspired mouth. “It’s not going to hurt you!” Matamoros likes to give the color a modern update by keeping the rest of the look stripped back. “I love a blank face, glowing skin, and a [dark] lip. It’s amazing as a real-world look.”

White Crayon Is Camouflage for Tired Eyes
There may be a solution to tired eyes inside your clown kit. “A good use for a white [crayon or paint stick] is as eyeliner or eyeshadow,” says Matamoros, who also places a bit “in the inner corners to brighten the eyes.”

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