Barbie-Wired

This is a two Part Makeup for day 12 of 31 days of Halloween! You can stick to regular glam barbie, or you can go gory and make her Barbie-wired…that is…Barbie covered in Barbed Wire. This is great for a costume contest!

Okay, let’s do glam barbie first.

I’m a Barbie Girl

How beautiful is my best friend/model? This is Natalie and she’s the best. She looks SO bomb as a blonde, which is why I wanted to create this look on her. I recommend starting with the eye, cause that’s just how I work best. Plus, I like to ensure a base that’s clear of and eyeshadow fallout.

On the eyes:

Start with primed eyes. Lay down a primer or concealer and set it with translucent powder. My favorite is the RCMA No Color Powder. I then started blending a light purple eyeshadow into the crease of her eye, focusing on the outer portion. I went in to darken that up with a deeper purple color and kept it more tightly packed in the outer corner. Make sure to blend that out. Working inward now toward the half-way point on the lid, pat on the most Barbie-colored-pink eyeshadow you can find. All of these shades can be found in the Morphe35U Palette. Pat some concealer onto the inner-most corner and third of the lid with a flat synthetic brush to really open up the eyes. Then apply a white eyeshadow on top. Now apply a coat of black liquid or gel eyeliner. Barbie doesn’t exactly have winged liner, but I went for that kind of style because I felt that it looked the most glam on Natalie. I used a bullet brush and the J.Cat Beauty you glow girl baked highlighter in the shade 106 Bella Rose to add some highlight to her inner corners. Moving on to the lower lash line… apply the same two purple colors and blend them from darkest to lightest, moving from the outer inward. Stop about half way across the lower lash line to keep the inner portion nice and bright. I added some black pencil eyeliner to her waterline, but white would look great also for a more cartoony effect. After applying mascara to the top and bottom lashes, I popped on some falsies. The one’s I used are incredible and really made it sexy. They are by Flutter Lashes in the style Intoxicating. I cannot even begin to describe the expression on Natalie’s face after she saw herself with these lashes on. She BECAME Barbie. I used my favorite lash glue from Daiso, but any kind will do.

Brow time! I used my holy grail brow product, the Anastasia Beverly Hill Dip Brow Pomade. But I used the blonde color for our little Barbie instead of my usual dark brown.

Now for the face:

Apply a foundation that gives  dewey, youthful glow. I used the Maybelline Fit Me foundation, dewy and smooth- 115 ivory for Natalie. I concealed and cleaned up under the eyes with the yellow shade in the NYX color correcting concealer Palette. To set it in place, I went in with the Becca Perfect Skin Mineral Powder– Porcelain

I contoured Natalie’s cheekbones, jawline, nose, and temples with a neutral contour color from Ansatasia Beverly Hills. For blush, I used a beautiful purple iridescent shade called Orchid Ice by La Femme. You can find this brand here.  I mixed in a pink color from the Morphe 9B Blush Palette and applied that over top of the purple. Taking the Bella Rose Highlighter from earlier, I went over the tops of her cheekbones and slightly down the bridge of her nose.

Barbie Lips, Baby:

Finding the perfect Barbie pink lip color was tricky, but I think I finally nailed it. I overlined Natalie’s lips with the Italia lip liner in the shade hot pink. I filled in the rest of her lips with this color also. I then went over them with the Laura Gellar Love Me Dew lip crayon in the shade Happiful. This is a very creamy formula and may not last through a Halloween party if you’ll be eating and drinking, BUT…the shade is absolutely perfect. So you can find a similar color in a more long-wearing formula, or take your chances with this one. I pat a bit of hot pink eyeshadow on top to calm down the shine just a little bit.

If you’re Blonde, perfect. If not, make sure you get a Blonde wig, even if its a cheap Halloween store one. Mine is from Amazon and looks super natural and beautiful. That’s all for your glamorous classic Barbie. All you need is something pink to wear and some girly accessories. Everyone will know exactly who you’re dressed as! To amp it up and make her a costume party hit, take the extra steps to make her Barbie-wired. Let’s go!

Barbie didn’t make it to Malibu…

Barbed Wire:

*Pro tip: Make sure your wig and costume are on before you apply all the gory stuff. You don’t want to risk messing it up if you have to change after you have a bunch of bloody wire all over the place.

The prep work involved in this is fairly simple, but may take some time. You’ll need craft/beading wire, some jewelry wire cutters, and some jewelry shaping pliers. You can find all this at Michael’s craft store and most of the tools you’ll need come together in a pack. I wish I had used a thicker wire for this, but you live and learn. Unravel your wire and measure the areas of your face you plan to put it: across your forehead, on either cheek, and even over/through your mouth area. This may get confusing, but stay with me.

To create the little barbs (that’s what they’re called, right?), wrap several layers of wire around the long pieces you measured a few times and cut them short so that the ends stick out in all directions. You really have to use your imagination and get creative with this. Look up reference photos to get the look and feel but don’t get hung up on making it look perfect. We want it to look tangled and kind of pulled apart. Make sure you bend the short, sharp edges of the “barbs” AWAY from your skin. You can even go over all the sharp edges with a bit of hot glue so that there’s no chance of poking yourself or anyone else when you wear this out.

Once you’re measured out and created all the pieces you want, you’ll have to glue them down. Since this is metal and can be on the heavy side, depending on the wire you used, I recommend using a special effects adhesive called Spirit Gum. But do not even THINK about using this until you have the special Spirit Gum remover. You’ll be sorry if you don’t. Trust me. Lay the Spirit Gum down onto your skin on the area you want to place your first piece of wire. Wait for it to get tacky. You’ll know its ready when you tap over it and it sticks to your fingers. Place the piece of wire down on top of it and hold it in place. You’ll have to work in sections to get everything to stick firmly. Be patient.

This next part is pretty time consuming, but really is worth the effort if you want to make this look as realistic and long-wearing as possible. On the piece of wire you just glued down, you’ll notice it’s not entirely secure. That’s why we’re doing this step. We also want the wire to look like it really did cut into the skin. You’ll need to get yourself some liquid latex! Make sure you are not allergic, obviously…and please take the time to do a patch test if you’re unsure. For a detailed description of how to work with liquid latex, see this post. Take some liquid latex and a brush you are willing to sacrifice, and paint right over top of the wire on all the places where it doesn’t feel completely stuck down. You want to spread it out onto the skin at least a couple centimeters out from the wire as well to give it more to hold onto once it dries. Wait for it to dry completely and go in with another layer. Do this until it feels secure. Powder this with translucent powder to take away the shine.

Repeat this process until all the wire pieces you made are secure on your face, neck, and anywhere else you want them. Now we can wrap some more wire, more loosely around, so that we can really sell that tangled effect. This is a lot easier when you have a friend helping you, so grab a buddy!  Have them help you actually wrap the wire around your head, neck, and shoulder area. Do this after you’ve put on your wig!!

Let’s get Gory…like a Taratino Movie…

Time for Blood!

With a small detail brush and some dark brown grease paint, go right up against the points where the wire meets your skin on random places of each wire piece. Paint this over the wire itself to give the impression that our blood is beginning to clot and dry in certain areas. Spread some red grease paint messily around the outside of that and the remaining areas of wire that are glued to your skin. I used the Ben nye bruise wheel for this step. Do this on the rest of your wire at the points where you glued it on your body as well. 

Now you can add in your fresh, liquid blood. Around Halloween time, this is pretty accessible. Mine is from here. Use a small brush to apply this messily over all the wire that touches your skin and even on the wire that’s not attached but sticks out around the areas that are pretty heavily crowded with wire and the grease paint. The idea is to make it gross, but not to go overboard. You can even incorporate blood smears and drips to make it less perfect and placed.

Make sure to mess up Barbie’s lipstick because I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have survived this bloody mess. You’ll want to make some runny “mascara tears” to show that Barbie had a total meltdown. For this, I used some black Kryolan Aquacolor paint. Make sure the paint is nice and watery, and use a small brush to hold it up to the lower lash line. As you press your brush into the skin, the black water color should run down the face like tears. Smear it and mess it up as much as you’d like. Don’t forget to get some help removing this and use that Spirit Gum remover we talked about. I recommend cutting off the loose wire first, then carefully peeling up the glued wire. 

Whew! This is one hell of a look! Now go make yourself into a little bloody Barbie girl in a barbed wire world and kill it at this year’s Halloween party. This is one of my favorite looks in this whole #31daysofhalloween makeup challenge! Stay tuned for more. I’ll see you tomorrow!