Halloween is fastly approaching and if you still haven't thought of a costume then this could be the one for you. Using a few household items and face paints you can create this half and half face of creepy burnt flesh, anybody feel the harvey dent vibes? It is a little time consuming, this look took us 2 hours but was completely worth the results, everyone will be stopping you for photo oportunities and you might even find you've creeped yourself out if you catch yourself in the mirror! I sure did!

Here is what you will need!

•  Cotton Buds
• Liquid Latex ( apply to crease of elbow 24 hours before using. if you feel irritation of any sort then remove and do not use. )
• Blood Gel / fake blood
• Cotton Wool
• Face paints ( red, coral, purple )
• Sellotape/ masking tape
• Makeup Brushes / paint brushes
• Bowl
• Scissors

Everything available to buy at Pauls Hair World in store or online! .

Step 1- Blocking out eyebrows - The first step in this look is to block out the eyebrow area, just like we have done in the picture below. Blocking out the eyebrow area is really important as latex can be really painful to remove if it is applied to any kind of hair, to avoid the painful removal we block out the eyebrow using sellotape or masking tape. Measure the eyebrow, cut sellotape double the length of the brow and fold over. The sellotape should now be the same length as your eyebrow and both sides should not be sticky. Next, you will need to tape this over your eyebrow using a single piece of tape placed on the skin at either side. Quickly draw a line down the centre of your face to mark out where you want your makeup to stop.

Step 2 - Applying latex to the face

pour your liquid latex into a bowl and start applying to the face with your cotton boots. Whilst it is still wet, pull apart your cotton buds or cotton roll and start to place over the top like the picture above. As you are placing the cotton wool, pull it apart, around the face to create textures that resemble burnt, stretched and melted flesh. Build a light layer of this all over the face, then, start to pack out some of the areas such as eyebrows and cheekbones. These areas should be raised so that you emphasise the bone structure, it allows us to go in and add deeper tones later to give it a hollow effect. This is the part which will take a while, don't rush, the more time you spend packing it out and hollowing the cotton wool base, the more effective this look will be! Leave the under eye area bare, just like when you apply a facemask. We are going to use face paint to hollow that area out later! Once you have finished with your latex and cotton wool, allow to dry!  You can use a hair dryer or let it air dry. It's entirely up to you!

Step 3 - Scab Blood

Whilst your face drys, use your fake blood to create scab like blood, blood clots and pulled muscle for a more realistic look. Pour your fake blood into a bowl and dip in balls of cotton wool, play around with it till it's completely covered and soaked through. The wool should end up clotted and clumpy, you can use the same pulling technique you used in step 2 to create stringy blood clots or pulled muscle. Using cotton wool makes the fake blood you can buy a lot darker and more authentic, the fake bloods you buy tend to be really red/ pink so this is a method you can use to make them look a little more real. Let this congeal in the bowl whilst you colour your face!

Step 4 Make sure your cotton wool base is thoroughly dry before you start the colouring process! The base - This is the part where we go into the cotton wool base with colours! You will first use the red face paint as a base colour ( pictured above ), you will be making depth and shading with the darker colours so your base has to be of a light shade! When you are painting in the base colour, make sure you use a soft makeup brush to make sure you don't pull apart the cotton wool base that you have built. Use a stipling motion to deposit the colour, if you use a stroking method the colour and the cotton wool mix will begin to knot and crumble! Make sure you cover anything you see which is white! The Depth - Take your purple and red face paints, mix together to create more of a bruise like shade. This will be using for contouring and creating depth on the face! Start by using this purple colour around all of the raised parts, pay special attention to under the eyebrow and under the false cheekbone you have built with cotton wool. These deeper tones create shadows, make the look more 3D instead of 2D and a lot more terrifying! This step really brings the look to life! Black is optional - you can use a black face paint to add a lot more depth but it's hard to remove black once you have started to use it. Be wary with it, over applying black face paint can ruin the whole look!

Step 5 -  Shading in the eye! Once you have finished the face shading, you should have something that resembles the picture below! This is where we guide you through shading the eye area, to finish off the colouring steps! When colouring the eye, make sure that you use a bruise colour, similair to the purple one that you created earlier. Fill in the eye area with this, again, the base colour has to be of a lighter shade than the colour your going to use for depth! Use an eyeliner or a black face paint to add depth to this section, pay particular attention to the under eye section, blending the darker shades outwards! This will create a hollowed out effect, with the eyebrow section that you built up earlier and the false cheekbone you also built up, this section should look super dark and scary!! Use a black eyeliner along your waterline to make it even darker!

Step 6 - Time to apply the blood! Go back to the bowl of scab blood that you created earlier, it should be looking really dark and clumpy by now!  Remember to use the pulling technique we used earlier so you have different textures to play around with! Start by placing blood clots in the deepest parts of the cotton wool base! Use some of the congealed blood to pull over the raised brow bone and also cheekbone! Adding this kind of blood concoction to the hollow parts makes it look a lot more like muscle! Once you have finished placing the blood clots, go in with just the bottle of gel blood to add more of a 3 dimensional look. Gel blood glistenes, add to highest parts of face so it catches the light and makes the shadows look even darker!

Step 7 - Contact lenses!   This step is completely optional! We just thought contact lenses would finish the look off perfectly! Have you checked out our mini sclera lenses? I chose the mini sclera lenses in Twilight bella to complete this look! If you don't fancy the mini sclera, what about regular lenses? If you are not sure on wearing contact lenses or how to keep them then check out one of my recent blogs here >