Lash Queen Tracy Murphy gives tips for an eye-opening Halloween makeup.
So, we’re ramping up to Halloween, undoubtedly the holiday which LA celebrates best. Halloween requires cocktails followed by makeup, and this is the basis of my annual Bitches Brew, also known as the “Make Me Fugly” fest.
The location varies– sometimes we all get together at dusk, get really fugly in numerous ways, and just wait for the little kiddies to tap on the door. Bwaaaaaaaaaaah! Sometimes they just scream and run the other way. Some of us wish this would happen every day of the year.
This year we plan to decamp and leave the kids on their own, once we are sufficiently fugly.
The cocktail of choice also varies, but my signature is this: combine red food coloring with high fructose corn syrup in a bowl. See, it’s fun already! Two things you know are really, really bad for you. Stir these two poisons around until you get a gorgeous, gory, tacky mess. Dip the rims of champagne glasses or margarita glasses into the goo, set upright, and let the gore run down into sticky blood-drops.
I usually add a few at my throat, just for effect, at this point.
For all of my redneck friends who drink everything from the red plastic cup, you need to upgrade for this effect. You can’t see dribbles and streams of blood on a red Dixie cup. (Also note: in the country, no one can hear you scream. Trust me, I lived in Mendonoma.)
As for the cocktail, I’m experimenting with what I’m calling “Who’s Ya Boo?”. It kind of looks like a piece of candy corn when you get it right. When it doesn’t, drink it anyway. Layer Pineapple vodka and pineapple juice as the first tier (twirl the first two ingredients in a blender or shaker, so it’s nice and yellow!). Next layer: an orange stripe the same height of softened Blood Orange sherbet. Then mix a little milk, simple syrup and ice together and layer on top for the white tip. Garnish with plastic vampire bite-fangs dripping sweet gore.
Also required: lots of unused, new makeup in hideous colors only drag queens and punk revivalists wear. Like: cobalt blue eye shadow, navy blue eye shadow, turquoise eye shadow, kelly green eye shadow, red eye shadow, orange eye shadow, hot pink eye shadow, bright yellow eye shadow. Lipsticks in weird tones that simply aren’t weird enough.
All I ask is that the makeup we bring to the Bitches Brew be new, unused, ideally unopened. OK, it’s fine if someone took a single swipe of that brick-red bronzer. But out of responsibility to my guests, some things, like needles and CISION passwords, we just don’t share. Once a makeup applicator touches your skin, it becomes a potentially infernal, seething bruja-ha of bacteria. These visitors from someone else’s mucosa (ew– wet eye-lining, nose-lining, ???), follicles, etc. can really wreak havoc when transferred by friending a well-used mascara, lipstick, etc.
And although conjunctivitis does indeed look like the best Halloween fugly face on earth, I’m not driving anyone to Urgent Care, especially after drinking a few “Who’s Ya Boo?”s, K?
I supply packs of new sponge applicators, Q tips, cotton pads, and we have at it. Someone inevitably ends up with a hairline-to-cleavage mask of bright blue eyeshadow, claiming to be channeling Mel Gibson somewhere between “Braveheart” and Moonshadows.
But makeup artist Tracy Murphy, known as the Lash Queen, has better ideas, and a decidedly more glamorous approach. Tracy says:
“This is the time to get creative and experiment with those colors that you have that maybe aren’t that ‘wearable’. Bring on the green eyeshadow! It’s important to re-imagine your makeup bag as a painting kit. Thinking of being a wicked witch? This is the perfect time to try that little-used green eyeshadow as a dusting all over the face to get that desired witchy pallor. Vampire? Use red lipstick to drag in bloody streaks from the sides of your mouth.”
“A simple black eyeliner is fast and easy way to draw in shadows and sketch in dark shapes all over the face. Use a sponge or fingertips to blend out – think lines on the face for a skeleton, hollowing out the cheekbones, darkening in the under eyes… quick and easy and you’re in the spirit.”
“If you are aiming for more glamour than ghoul, this is the perfect time for lashes! Wearing a false strip of lashes is an incredibly quick and easy way to add instant drama to your look. Also, glitter is a game changer—press glitter on eyelids and/or after lipstick application leaves a gorgeous effect.”
An industry go-to for 20 Halloweens, she’s the founder of Lash Star Beauty, a new cosmetics line dedicated to all things lashes launching early in 2016.
Happy Haunting!
PS — Eventually, that makeup’s gotta come off. Don’t use baby-oil — it leaves little bumps under your skin which are literally there forever. Try Dermalogica PreCleanse, which is also an oil, but not pressed from coal waste like “mineral oil” or baby oil is. Then follow with an actual makeup remover, then wash your face with a gentle liquid cleanser. Again, I like Dermalogica here: try Special Cleansing Gel.
