Share your Halloween face painting tips with Snazaroo and post a picture for a chance to win a £300 voucher! NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Snazaroo have asked us to find out what Mumsnetters’ Halloween face painting tips are.

Here’s what they say, “Letting children just be children, to play, run and imagine is important for every parent and a little face paint can transform everyday play into a magical world of make-believe.

"Sometimes face painting can be tricky but we’re here to help. We’re always thinking of easy ways for you to create designs children love. As they turn to see who is in the mirror, the magic shared will be remembered long after the paint has been rinsed away.

"Go on, paint a smile and see what happens”

So, what face painting tips or designs do you have to share with other Mumsnetters for the spookiest time of year? Maybe you have an easy three step design to transform your DC into a vampire? Perhaps you've got that skeleton look down pat or are good at turning out mini monsters or weeny witches? Also, is there anything in particular you enjoy about face painting? Is it the creativity of it? Or seeing how much your DCs enjoy it? Whatever it is, we’d love to hear it!

It would be particularly great if you could also post a picture on this thread of your Halloween face painting prowess

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!

Thanks
MNHQ

I have to use simple face painting designs as I am not a natural! Spiders on the face are okay for me. I would love to attempt a pumpkin but I am not sufficiently confident. YOutube has been my friend for such designs.

A cat is all I can achieve by myself but I can copy designs quite easily so that's always helpful. My DDS love face painting as they can pretend to be anything. I also find it quite calming.

I don't have any pictures, but YouTube and Pinterest are great for inspiration. Practice in advance of Halloween, and then take a photo for reference!

I love face-painting. I'm no expert but I was pleased with last years' Corpse Bride. DD looked really sweet from a distance, then gruesome close up.

I love having a go at face painting, my tip is use a nice sharp lipstick pencil to draw scars and such like, and talc sets everything beautifully! Here is a really bad picture of DS as a skeleton

Some times you don't have to cover the whole face with face paints for it to look effective. A few 'blood streaks' or cobwebs done well can look very spooky.
Designs online are a good starting point for inspiration.

I love face painting at halloween , DD1 was a corpse bride last year and we did the dia del muerto mexican type face paints-we got lots of great comments. I would rather not post photo's though as to keep anon on here but you will have to trust me that it looked fab ;)

Even on my little ones that I don't want to put too much on I will do a little cobweb and spider or little pumpkin on part of their face. The kids really enjoy it too.
DS is a wee bit older now so is a bit too cool for facepaints but we still do a scar or frankenstein type neck stitching thing!
That being said we do try and stay away from the too gory type designs.

I do find though that I always end up using an eyeliner pencil for drawing or outlining designs and it would be great if some of the facepaint sets gave a fine tipped pencil/crayon type stick in their sets.

Meant to add Pinterest is a great place for design ideas or simple step by step guides.

My best hint is that I turned my baby into a brain-eating zombie with the aid of beet juice.

I didn't have any worries about her ingesting the face paint!

Dusting any white with talc after always keeps it set in place. Infact sudocream and white eyeshadow does the trick in our house. Went to a Halloween party and most other people's where greasy and the white pigment barely noticeable. . They was all really impressed with my ghostly zombie face :)

I put my usual make up primer on dd before doing face painting on her, keeps it in place all day/night. I also use my Beautyblender type make up sponges to apply it (but I use the cheaper dupes from ebay rather than the £16 ones!)

Patience, practice and wet wipes! I can't seem to add my photo of one of my non facepainting fails but for every time it's passed my kids high standards, there's half a pack of wet wipes in the bin. I will try and add a photo in another post.

One that passed the mirror inspection

My tips are not to get too stressed about getting it perfect. My kids have always been so excited about having facepaint on that they don't mind if it doesn't look quite as it is supposed to. As long as its passable they are happy!

Use the booklet that comes with snazaroo for ideas and copy it as that can make it easier than trying to come up with something from scratch.

Finally, don't be afraid to go against the crowd. Just because everyone else is doing halloween, if your kid wants to be a cute puppy or princess or tiger - why not? In fact, my kids really DON'T like halloween, but we can still have fun and do facepainting with other themes anyway.

facial primer under the face paint helps it stay in place and not soak into the skin. This is DD last year.

Luckily DD always wants to be a cat at Halloween so that's just about within my artistic range.

Less is more!

DD is too young to facepaint yet but I've done Hallowe'en face painting for charity in the past and picked up some easy designs.

Vampire is super-simple - white face, use a sponge down from the cheekbones to create the 'hollowed out' cheeks, two fangs and the widow's peak! Simple.

A pumpkin is so easy - an orange face, three lines down - one straight down over the nose, and two curved ones, one on either side of the nose. Triangles over the eyes and a zig zag over the mouth.

White can be really difficult to get an even covering of - use as little water as possible; just enough to turn the white into a kind of thick paste on the sponge, and then long, clean strokes with a foam sponge to apply it.

I love that it's so simple but kids get so much joy out of it. Every child seems to want their face painted - even if they just want a little spider web on their cheek or their hand, they love the feeling of the brush and showing off their face paint to their friends.

Make it a competition to see if they can sit as still as possible - it'll stop them from turning their head constantly. Always keep a hairband in your face painting kit - I have a full Snazaroo kit and make sure I keep a couple of fabric headbands in there to push hair back off the face.

My dd and I love dressing up for Halloween, especially if we can be really scary. It's a lovely thing we plan and do together every year, and she particularly enjoys being the same as me so we often wear matching costumes with the same spooky facepaint. This was us last Halloween - we googled lots of pictures of skulls to plan our faces, and helped each other with the tricky bits like the teeth. This year we're being zombies

I dont usually buy face paints and use my make up it works just as well, and stays on better smudge free !

Look on the internet for inspiration and make it fun!

Never use the 'vaseline' type face paints, they melT away within an hour and you don't get the same depth of colour as you do with a good quality facepaint.

Keep it simple...less is definitely more effective! And wears better too!

It's a beautiful butterfly! :)))

Not too complicated. White face and dribbles of red.