Red Riding Hood & The Wolf [halloween makeup tutorial]

I'm stuck in traffic on my way home from work with my aunt so after about 3 hours of commuting and only being a few miles down the road I thought I would spend this time writing tutorial on how I did the makeup for me and my boyfriend's halloween costume this year.

I got a lot of positive feedback from the photos we both posted on Instagram and in person at the two halloween outings we attended and people were all amazed by how it was just some basic makeup used!

Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf

We went as a play on Little red riding hood and the wolf, but instead it was Red who gets her face clawed apart by a werewolf. People kept saying they didn't think that was how the story went, but the truth is, in early versions of this tale it was a werewolf who preyed on Red and did terrible things like tricked her into eating her grandmother and getting in to bed with her. I believe it was a lesson on listening to your parents and not talking to strangers. At least that's what I remember from my fantasy and fairytales English course I took in college.

My makeup (face primer aside seeing as that one isn't totally necessary) only took these products: black liquid eyeliner pen, brown eyeshadow, black eyeshadow, liquid foundation, and fake gel blood. The only tools I used were: 1 eyeshadow brush and a couple toothpicks.

My first makeup attempt was terrible. I tried to use those fake scar things from the party store... it just did not work out the way I wanted. This is my failed attempt at using those:

what a mess. I just had to start over.

started with a clean face (or put primer and foundation on... I only did the first).

So after peeling that mess off my face I decided to go old school and just use the makeup I had to create my "claw wound". I will give a simple step up step comment under each photo. Overall, to create this gash it took under 30 minutes.

Draw 4 thin lines with the liquid eyeliner

first, lightly blend brown eyeshadow around the initial lines leaving a bit of clean skin between in eyeshadow shading. Then layer black eyeshadow on top of the brown but not too close to the edges of the brown shadowing. Cover your entire eyelid with black/brown eyeshadow (but give it a little texture and shadowing).

using a tooth pick, lightly draw a thin dotted line of foundation between your two connecting eyeliner lines (each gash mark). this is to highlight and make the gash look more 3D. Using the black eyeliner, draw another line next to the first, connecting at the tips but widening near the centre and then tapering back to connect the tips.

You can see that the lines of foundation don't all connect and black outlines aren't perfectly straight You want it to look a little organic.

using another toothpick, dip it about an inch deep in the gel fake blood and wipe the excess on the container's edge. Holding the toothpick flat lengthwise against your skin, dab and wipe the blood (dip again as needed) across the "inside" of your gash on the foundation and around the eyeshadowed edges.

Leave some bits of the foundation clean as this is what really gives it a 3D effect.Be careful not to get the blood on your eyelid otherwise your lashes start sticking together and you can't blink properly... overall discomfort.

do whatever kind of makeup you want on the normal eye and then put in a freaky contact lens that whites out everything but the pupil and you're done!

And I won't do a full tutorial on how I did Kris' werewolf makeup but all it took was black liquid eyeliner, black kohl eyeliner, black and brown eyeshadow and foundation and for tool: small eyeshadow brush, larger contour brush, and toothpicks.

For the hair, I started with a base of eyeshadow, layered on pencil eyeliner, then liquid liner, then foundation highlights, and then brushed over it again with brown eyeshadow. For the eyes, just black eyeshadow on the lidsextending up into the eyebrowns and dipping at the middle tear ducts. For the nose, black eyeliner all over then brown eyeshadow blending upwards and wide across the bridge to give a larger, flat canine-style illusion to the nose.
Fake pointed ear and fake fangs, a red plaid shirt, bloody white tank top, tattered jeans and boots to finish off the easy were wolf costume.

So this was my halloween costume for this year, and I'm already trying to think of what we will be next year. I'm diggin' doing more elaborate makeup and a simpler costume, though I did DIY my Red Riding Hood costume as well by making alterations on some clothes I picked up at the thrift store and other pieces I had at home.

The make up tips for this style of gash is pretty transferably for any size or location on your body, so even if you don't want to do this on your face, you could easily use it on your arm or neck! If you have any questions feel free to comment below (I know my instructions are kind of choppy seeing as I wrote this post on my cellphone on my commute home).

Any suggestions on what we should be next year?