CLEOPATRA

The Queen herself. Miss Cleopatra for day 22 of 31 days of Halloween! This is the perfect follow up to yesterday’s Mummy look. Now we go back in time to before Cleopatra was turned into a Mummy (if that’s even the real story…work with me here). Let’s go!

Costume

I had to pick through every piece of gold costume jewelry I owned to piece together her perfect regal style. I’ve seen some Cleo looks super simple and elegant with a pain costume and some very decked out in gold chains, gold leaves, gold snakes, you name it. It’s really up to you. My hair is black, so that was helpful. But if yours is not, I recommend getting a Cleo-looking wig to really sell the look and pull it all together. The head piece is really important, too in my opinion. It can come down to the difference between just some beautiful eyeliner work and an actual Cleopatra look.

Eyes

The eyes are the focal point of the whole look! I mean…obviously! Cleopatra’s eyeliner is iconic and the line work is therefore, very important. I’ve seen many elongated, Cat-eye, turned up winged liner looks to simulate Cleopatras. But I didn’t want to go that direction. On this makeup journey and throughout this challenge it has been my mission to emphasize the educational piece of what I do. In this case, that meant showing you that a down-turned eye look can be just as sexy and beautiful when done right. Down turned eyes don’t always need to be sad and droopy looking. They can be awesome and glam and are not limited to certain time period/ era specific looks.

Okay, getting off my little soapbox now. On to the eyes. Do the eyes before the face to ensure you can get up close with the shadow and line work without worrying about smearing the face makeup. I used some tape to guide my lines and help me with the symmetry. Although I am making the eyes ultimately down turned, I place two little pieces of  scotch tape under each lower lash line in an upturned diagonal toward the brow bone. With this in place, I primed my eyes with the Tarte Shape Tape Concealer and set that down with a translucent powder.

For the eyeshadow I dipped into the Jaclyn Hill Morphe Palette and used the matte teal shade to blend onto the outer V area as well as through the crease. Start out by placing the color more tightly and then blending outward softly in small circles. I pat over the outer third of the eye with the shimmery teal color from the same palette. To darken the overall appearance of the shadow, I packed on the shade called Axis from the Anastasia Beverly Hills Subculture palette, and blending it up into the outer crease as well. Once I had the teal/turquoise base of shadow I was looking for, I went in with some gold on the inner part of the eye that I had left mostly untouched until this point. Taking the Mehron Metallic Powder in the Gold the activating mixing fluid that comes with it, I painted the inner third of my eye, blending that color softly into the teal. Once it dried, I blended a better transition between the gold and teal by overlapping the two colors in the middle.

Next, find a liquid black eyeliner that has a very fine brush so that you can really make clean and precise lines. I recommend the NYX black Studio Liquid Eyeliner or the L.A. Colors one. I alternated between the two. The first line will be a regular black winged eyeliner along the top lash line. At that point, you can peel off the tape and clean up any fallen eyeshadow under your eyes with a makeup wipe. Prime and set the under eye area after you clean up to get the lower lash line ready to work on. 

The second black line will be a little upside down U shape, running right through the crease of my eyes. If you don’t have a crease, just make the shape into a very flat version of the McDonald’s arch. Taper off on each end and get them as symmetrical as possible. I repeated the teal colors into the lower lash line, going from darkest at the lash line to lightest. I also lined my waterline with a black liner pencil. I then made a line with the black liquid eyeliner from both inner tear duct areas into a downward pointing diagonal line. As you taper the line off and draw it further in toward the nose, the gap between the line and the actual waterline of the eye should increase into a tiny V shape.

Next, I made some more lines with the gold paint from before. One line extended from  the middle of the lower lash line all the way out to the end of the eyeliner wing. I made a second gold line within that V shaped gap I created before, and a third gold line on the outer edge of the crease eyeliner. At this point, I started adding glitter. My glitter is very fine, gold glitter that I got in a pack at Walmart. Using a tiny detail brush to gently press on the glitter while the gold paint was still wet worked very well.

Top and bottom mascara of course! And lashes are definitely a must! Mine are Flutter Lashes. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the style. I was tempted to use huge dramatic lashes like you’d normally think to do for Cleopatra. However, keeping the lash fairly light kind of speaks to my motives with my artistry. I don’t want to be typical, so I like to add value in unexpected places. In this case, I tried to show that glam makeup can still have a wow factor without relying on huge lashes. Also, we created this beautiful line work and it would be such a shame to be unable to see it through a huge, crazy pair of lashes.

As a finishing touch, I added the lines of the Eye of Horace under one eye. To do this, check out a reference photo from google, or keep looking back at my photos. This is another element that really defines the context of the look and brings in a more Egypt-specific vibe.

Face

Finally we can move on to the face. I used the Elf Liquid Foundation in the shade Buff, which is more tan than my natural skin. I wanted Cleo to be a bronzed Goddess! To do my eyebrows, I just used a black eyeshadow (from the Jaclyn Hill Morphe palette) to shade in the shape and go over any bald spots. Going in with a cream contour to define my features, I used the LA Girl Pro Conceal Beautiful Bronze. I made sure to set the creme contour with a powder contour, specifically the Anastasia Beverly Hills contour color in Fawn. For blush, I kept it very warm toned and more bronze than a real blush color. The Amaretto blush from the Jaclyn Hill Becca collaboration was perfect for this. And there was no better highlighter to use than the Champagne Pop highlighting powder, also by Becca in collab with Jaclyn Hill! I went in very heavily with this on the tops of my cheekbones, framing the eyes above the outer half of the brow bones, down  the center of the nose and on the cupid’s bow. Lastly, I put on a nude lipstick. MAC Siss lipstick turned out to be the perfect undertone to compliment the bronze and gold tones of the overall look. Don’t forget to set everything with setting spray! I used the Ben Nye Final Seal.

All done! Sexy Cleopatra is complete. I love the way this look turned out. It just goes to show that you can still achieve a character-specific look without doing the same old thing everyone else has done a hundred times. Switch it up a bit. We did that here with the down turned eyes and the smaller false lashes. I think that’s what makes this design stand out among the rest. I hope today’s post inspires you and I’ll catch you tomorrow for more 31 days of Halloween!