I ♥ Fridays: our first farmhouse halloween!
Johnny and I had our first official Halloween at the Farmhouse, and I spent the day looking like a black-and-white photograph! It was so fun playing with makeup for a unique visual effect, and the impact in photos was pretty surreal!
Grayscale makeup is an emerging costume trend with an increasingly popular presence on social channels like Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube. I was first inspired by Detox, my all-time favorite contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race, who made headlines with this visually arresting look:
MY original plan was to be black-and-white Dorothy from the beginning of the Wizard of Oz (inspired by this lovely Pin), but when the costume arrived it just wasn't coming together, so a quick trip to Target helped me switch gears to simply a gray version of myself.
So how did the look come to life? I relied on this tutorial by Whitney Avalon for guidance, and followed most of her recommendations. For the face makeup, I used Snazaroo face paint in light gray, and got a ton of great feedback on how well it stayed on all day long without cracking! I applied the paint all over my face, neck, chest and upper back with a foundation brush spritzed with a very little bit of water. I also bought dark gray face paint for contouring, but ended up having better results by simply using a black eyeshadow applied lightly to my cheekbones with a blush brush.
My hair was a black wig, and this one from Amazon turned out to be great! I just gave it a little haircut to make it match my hair length more realistically. A black hat on top make the look just a little more costume-y (and helped the wig stay secure!)
The dress itself was a bit of a last-minute challenge. The black-and-white options I had on hand had more of a cream tone to them than gray, which would have impacted the effectiveness of the illusion. Thankfully, a quick trip to Target helped me find a dress with varying shades of gray and white that kept the color palette squarely where I needed it. Gray gloves and tights completed the look.
It was a fun experience to be dressed up at work, getting stares, comments, and lots of pictures taken of me all day. I most enjoyed getting to see myself next to a more colorful coworker, which demonstrated just how successfully the visual trick was working!
I came home ready to relax after a long day, and changed into more comfortable clothes as Johnny passed out five bags of candy to probably 100 or more neighbor kids who came by. It was our first Halloween at the Farmhouse (Halloween was actually the day before our escrow closed last year!), so we had no idea what to expect and still hadn't had much interaction with most of the kids living in our neighborhood. The #1 most frequent comment made by kids at our doorstep was, "Wow, your house is cool!" This was often followed by the #2 comment we received, when the kids noticed me in the background, and said, "Hey! She's blue!"
Sigh. By the end of the day, with my blue sweater on, I suppose I did look a little blue. But when I wore the full head-to-toe grayscale look, I somehow managed to pull it off, even with a slight blue tint to my complexion!
I didn't quite know how it was all going to come together at first, but my grayscale Halloween costume was a LOT of fun! Our first of many Halloweens in the Farmhouse was a delightful one, and we are now really looking forward to the enjoying the holiday season we are quickly approaching.
