Halloween Makeup: Create a Sexy Vampire Look

Gregory Arlt, Director of Makeup Artistry at MAC Cosmetics:

As we know Halloween is also about creepy scary gouls, Vampira is a very popular costume to have because she's glamorous and she's a little scary.

So I started on Gillian a foundation that's about four shades lighter than her skin. As you can see there's a definite color difference between her face and her body.

For Vampira we're going to do a very sexy classic beauty makeup but using all neutral dark colors. I'm starting with a light vanilla shadow from the lash line all the way up to the eyebrow. Really go ahead and pack this color on. I'm using a big flat brush and just making the eye as pale as possible. Concentrate a little bit lighter on the lid. You want that lid to just look humongous and light. As you can see I'm just really pressing the color onto the lid just so I really pack it on, because Halloween those parties last a long time so you want that makeup to really stay on.

Now we're going to contour her eye. I'm using a big fluffy brush, just getting a little bit right on the tip of the brush, tapping off the excess. I'm using it right under the bone of her eye. The color I'm using is a really perfect neutral gray to get that shape. And what you're going to do is just go back and forth - like a windshield wiper and it'll blend the color as you apply it, because you want that eye to look really blended and perfect. Take the same gray shadow with with the brush and take it all underneath the eye very thick and very diffused. Because you want the eyes to look again sexy but also a little scary, a little hollowed out. Now that you have the gray creased color, take a darker color almost a blackened gray with a stiff brush and go right into the deeper crease of the eye. The effect here is to make you look a little more sunken, a little more defined and definitely more vampiric. What I'm doing is taking the brush right into the deeper crease of the eye and blending that all the way over into the white color, so you don't have any hard lines. Now that the same darker color for the deeper crease with a small stiff angled brush and we're going to take that darker color right under the lash line for depth.

Now we're going to do a very chic liquid liner using a gel liner with a very thin brush. Take it all the way across the eye, really getting into the lash line. This will be your definition. It's up to you, I like to wing it out a little bit, a little defined but not too much, and just get it right into the lash line and get it into a nice point at the end. So we're going to go ahead and pack on the mascara. Don't be afraid to go glamorous because she is a glam-vampira. I'm going to get a ton of mascara on her lashes. Very pretty.

So because you're probably going to be wearing a black wig if you're being a vampire for Halloween, you also want to make sure that your eyebrows match. So what I'm going to do is use a black eye shadow all the way through the eyebrow to get the definition that we really want. Taking an angled brush and using it right to the top of the brow to get the shape that I want. And then filling in the rest of the hair to get the depth that I want. What I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you to contour your face with makeup so you look dead but gorgeous. So take your exact same gray eye shadow that you used for the crease first and use a contour brush with an angle. A blush brush will do but a contour brush you can really get right under the check bone. So what I'm going to do is start to take that color and really sculpt. More pressure closer to the ear, and then I lighten the touch as we start to go out, so you can get that really nice sunken in cheek look. And really blend as you go and you can take a little bit under the jaw line, so you can get a really nice hollowed out, I-just-came-out-of-the-coffin look.

So now to give her a true other worldly power, we're going to give her a bloodless nose job and contour her nose with the same gray shadow on a fluffy brush. The effect here is we start to get that very dead look by taking that same shadow and bringing it down the sides of the nose to add a little bit of an eerie shading to her skin. We have contoured her cheekbones, her jaw line, down the side of the nose, a little on the temples to give her the dead vampire look.

Now let's give her a little bit of highlight. You want to darken whatever is receding and you want to lighten whatever's standing out, like the nose, the cheekbones, the chin. So what I'm going to do is take a light pearl shadow. I chose a pearl, because I want her skin to look a little more ethereal and still very glamorous. So I'm using with a fluffy brush just on the upper cheekbones, down the bridge of the nose, a little on the chin and on the other side as well.

To begin the lips, it's a really good idea to erase them completely with foundation. I've used the lighter colored foundation on her lips all over just to take away any redness and to make sure that her lips stay on all night. To further ensure take a little bit of your face powder and go right around the lip line cause this will hold the pencil on and lipstick on a lot longer. I'm going to use a darkened blackened plum imaginable. Just take your lip liner and w'ere just going to go right around the natural lip shape. I'm going to cheat the upper lip a little fuller. I'm going to go very very round and fill in most of the lip with the pencil. Not only will that give you no line of demarcation, but it will also keep your lip liner on all night. So after you've lined your lips and filled them in slightly, take your lip brush and blend all that pencil into your mouth. And that will also help your lipstick to stay on throughout the night. And after you've done that I'll take my deep blackened plum lipstick and apply it. It almost matches the pencil perfectly. You can also apply a little bit of red lipstick into that if you wanted to brighten it.

As you can see the Vampira makeup look is only complete with a black wig and in my opinion a 'lil blood. So to create the look of blood, what you can do is take your blackened plum lipstick that we used for the vampire look and mix it with a red lipstick with a brush and just go right down on the right corner of the mouth and go haphazard with a squiggly line ending with a droplet and just fill it in.

To get that just-bitten-look, and there she is: Vampira.