Goth makeup is a whole universe of its own, and there are virtually no limits in terms of what you can do and experiment with. Even a look gone wrong can turn into an angle and perspective in it’s own right, and as a yoof I used to love the fact that you could potentially spend two hours fucking about with your hair or face, wreck it totally and still be able to go out sporting some kind of look.
I made good use of this fact when I was younger, and I’m not afraid to fuck with my hair and face in the name of science even now, and just taking the time to play about on occasion can actually lead to the odd major success, as well as a lot of entertaining fails too.
I have also taken a good crawl around the internet in order to rip off other people’s ideas, and have tried and tested all of them at some point, with differing degrees of success.
Anyway, I’m going to use this blog post to share five interesting and unique Gothy makeup ideas, and how to go about them in order to give yourself the best chances of a win.
Ombre lips
Ombre lips are the hot thing with the fluffies at the moment, but there’s no reason that we can’t getting on the act too. Brands like Benefit are even bringing out ombre-style lipsticks, with two colours in the sticks, although most of these are girly pinky shades rather than red, black or purple. However, an ombre lip is really easy to get right with a bit of trial and error and practice, so here’s how I do it:
Pick three colours-one in a lip pencil, a lighter lipstick and a lighter again gloss. The shades should all be from within vaguely the same spectrum.
Use the dark pencil as an overliner, and also to fill in the corners of your lips. Blot and repeat, then apply the lipstick within the lines at the centre and use a cotton bud to blend the liner into the colour. Blot, powder, and finish with a dot of the lighter gloss in the centre.
EASY.
(But a total ball ache to touch up on the go, obvs.) There’s also a decent tutorial here:
Lip designs
Lip designs are great fun to play about with and easy to swipe and restart if you get it wrong. However, these are limited in terms of functionality, and will tend to bleed and smudge if you eat, drink or smoke, although there are ways to minimize this.
So anyway.
Lip designs involve slapping on several layers of a fairly strong, dark or bright lipstick, and then using a corrector pen saturated in makeup remover and blotted off to “cut” designs into your lipstick.
When you are done with it and happy, use something like Lipcote or another lipstick sealer to keep it from moving.
This is a really simple approach-if you can stand the fiddlyness (and don’t mind spending the day feeling as if you’ve eaten a donut and can’t lick the sugar off your lips) try something like this with skin glue (eyelash glue) and beads!
Mad lashes
I cannot get on with false lashes at all. I’m no shrinking violet when it comes to slapping on the slap, but when it comes to willingly making yourself feel like you’ve got a hundred spiders trying to crawl out of your eyes, my enthusiasm wanes. I can only consider that I must be in the minority here, because “I can’t come out, I haven’t got my lashes on” appears to be the new version of “I’m in for the night, I’ve taken my bra off.”
Anyhow.
Mad lashes.
Ones like these come in one strip, and you basically just stick them on and kiss your vision goodbye:
While if you don’t want that degree of irritation, my advice is to use one set of lashes and a metricfucktonne of black liner with a smoky eye, like this:
…And buy a LOT of cleanser.
Eyeshadow transfers
Eyeshadow transfers are designed to give you a wicked arty effect to your eyes, without the hassle. I am sure these work for some people, but I am not among them. However, if you are, you can hope to achieve looks like this:
Which honestly, what’s not to like? You can order transfers like this on Ebay for a couple of quid ago.
Rainbow highlighter (ish)
I have gone batshit insane over rainbow highlighter before, and while this is not a look I rock everyday, I have tweaked it somewhat to make it more Goth friendly. Interspersed with comments of “that’s so cool” I have also fielded a fair number of “the blue makes it look like a bruise,” and so this provided inspiration for how to make this rainbow effect darker.
Starting with a pale base, you can either buy a rainbow highlighter palette or make your own with arrange of sparkly pigments and shadows in darker or metallic shades, which will really stand out on pale skin and darker tones alike. A range of purples and blues goes well, and when they are dark enough and contrast enough, the effect becomes obvious and not like a bruise.
LOVE!
