(The managers added the exclamation mark to the theme, not me)
Woodstock! I wore a yellow t-shirt and (since I don't own yellow pants) khaki.
I had to rush the face makeup because the hair took a lot longer than expected, and I'm not super pleased with it. I used some yellow pastel chalk to color my nose and above my eyebrows then tried to draw in a beak and feathers with eyeliner.
I spent an hour or two cutting feathers out of yellow construction paper the night before (though I did find one actual yellow feather to include). Then I put my hair into lots of small ponytails and stuck the feathers into the elastic. This proved to be much more difficult than I was expecting: my hair kept getting tangled in the feathers and wouldn't separate properly for the ponytails. The end result was a tangled mess, but at least a feathery one:
Time: Forty minutes.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: This, no, but I might consider another bird-themed costume someday. Given more time I could really step it up-- wings, a tail, more extreme makeup, actual feathers, you get the idea.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: "Great Pumpkin Waltz" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio
Costume #32: 1960s
Those of you who knew me well in my Sophomore year of high school might be giving that picture a double take.
I had a feeling most of the people who dressed up would go with a Hippie theme (this proved accurate) so I decided to do something different and go for more of a mod style. I happened to have an old... well, it was sold as a dress, but when I got it I thought it would make a cool jacket. So cool that I wore it every day for a chunk of that year of school. I, uh, went through a long stage where I thought of fashion as something that happened to other people.
Anyway, it was still lurking in the back of my closet and with the buttons done up and the belt removed it was perfect for the 1960s style. I wore it with black slacks and a red t-shirt. My Mom lent me a pair of amazing white GoGo boots, but after standing in them long enough to do my hair and makeup my feet were killing me. So, sadly, I went with more practical footwear.
Based on my research, I went for makeup that emphasized the eyes with more natural lips. I wore a red ribbon as a headband to go with it.
I really did my best to try to tease my hair into the big poofy style appropriate to the era, but I'm still new to this technique (I tried it for the first time ever on costume #3) and it's not as dramatic as I would've liked.
Time: An hour
Unexpected or Notable Reactions: I knew this one wouldn't be getting any huge reactions when I walked upstairs for breakfast and my Dad asked, "Um, aren't you wearing a costume today?" (Yes, I have given him a hard time over this). After I explained the theme, he told me that I did look pretty period accurate, but not really different enough from current styles for him to have noticed on his own.
Sure enough, I didn't get much in the way of reactions from anyone-- not even when I dressed like this while running errands that afternoon-- though a few people said I looked nice so maybe this is a look I should be incorporating into my day to day styles?
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Probably not, see the previous answer for my reasons why
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Let's go with the era appropriate "Devil in Disguise" by Elvis Presley. (Which, looking at the lyrics, would have been a great one for Angels & Devils last week)
Costume #33: Where's Waldo?
I wore blue jeans, a knit hat, and a red and white striped shirt. (Well, actually, an old pajama top. I felt kind of silly, I kept thinking I didn't have a red and white striped shirt to wear for this costume right up until I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror that morning).
I did my hair in loose pigtails, and borrowed a pair of fake glasses from my brother (part of his "nerd" costume. Which, come to think of it, I never did get a photo of him in that getup). I kept the makeup simple, but did bright red lipstick to match the shirt. I think the result looks kind of hipster?
Time: 20 minutes, but only because I had trouble finding the glasses
Unexpected or Notable Reactions: I had a coworker say to me, "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you in makeup before."
I started to laugh-- until I realized she was serious. This is someone who's commented on a lot of my costumes, too, so I'm not sure what's going on there.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: You know, I think I would. It's a cute idea, especially if you're going to be in any kind of group photo, and it's very quick and easy.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: ...Um... Yeah, I've got nothing. Instead, here's a fun fact: Waldo has an evil nemesis: the wicked Odlaw. (Waldo spelled backwards). He shows up in some of the books and frequently argues with the narrator in the tv show. Other fun fact: There was a Where's Waldo tv show. And a video game, though the video game is considered one of the worst ever made. (I'm learning a lot of interesting things by researching these costumes.)
Costume #33.5: Turtle Power
No costume for this one, they scheduled this theme for a day that I'm not working. But I did want to share the Most Appropriate Halloween Song for this one just because I had such an awesome one: "We Are Ninjas" by Pentatonix
Costume #34: 1920s
This flapper dress is one my Mom made for a dance performance I did back in college-- she got the dress at a thrift store, hemmed it shorter, and added the fringe. I wore it with a pearl bead necklace, black stockings, and mary jane style shoes.
I went for simple, more or less period-appropriate makeup (slightly darker eyebrows, red lipstick, etc) but the big job was the hair. In 1920s, pretty much all women had their hair bobbed. Meanwhile, I have thick long hair that's just getting to the point where it reaches the middle of my back. Kind of inconvenient. I could have gotten a haircut, but that seemed a bit drastic for one costume, so instead I did a faux bob. This involved an hour of braiding, tucking, and pining about 70 or so bobby pins to get my hair into something like bob length, and then using a truly unholy quantity of hairspray. (This was actually the quick and dirty version-- to get a really accurate faux bob I'd have had to get up at 4 in the morning to start curling everything.) And even then, while working I had to pause every half hour or so and repin hair that had come loose. But I don't think it looked half bad!
Time: An hour and a half-- mostly spent on the hair.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Sure, but I'd be more likely to wear this to some kind of Big Band Swing Dance event. (I actually did this look for a Decades Dance while I was living up in Boise, and one of these times I might have to tell you the story of that dance-- after I've had a little more time to get over the particularly embarrassing parts)
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Let's go with "Swinging at the Seance" by The Moon-Rays. (The video is pretty cheesy, but this is the title song of an excellent album of Halloween themed swing music.)
Costume #35: Zombies
If you're having trouble reading the t-shirt, it says, "I volunteered for the zombie apocalypse and all I got was this lousy shirt." It was a souvenir from volunteering for Last Night On Campus, a charity event run by the Humans vs Zombies group at USU. The brain I borrowed from my Mom's costume bins.
I didn't wash or even brush my hair the day before, so it still had all the weird kinks and tangles and hair spray from that faux bob I did. I sprinkled my hair and shirt with a mix of baby powder and a little bit of hot chocolate mix-- looks like dirt but smells quite a bit nicer. For makeup I mostly did a lot of brown and black smudges, trying to emphasize make cheekbones and the bags under my eyes. Then I added red lipstick and a little eyeliner to make my mouth look bloody and do some scratches over one eye.
The part of the makeup job that I ended up liking best was the neck wound. I tried using lipstick to draw a bite mark, but it didn't look terribly convincing, so I filled in with black. It still just looked weird so I tried using lipstick to make the wound look bloody. That looked worse, so I started to remove the extra lipstick-- and then I saw what the smudges looked like. I smeared a little bit of lipstick all around the bite. My Dad (who reacted with disgust when he saw it) said it had the effect of making it look like an injury that had tried to heal but failed. All in all, not too bad for something that almost entirely came out of a normal makeup kit.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Maybe. I think if this was my main costume, I'd want to find ways to play it up more-- there are all kinds of prosthetic injuries you can make or buy that would add a real punch. But as is, this is a great costume to break out for a Zombie walk or some other kind of zombie themed event that isn't on Halloween proper.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: There are so many great Zombie songs. Thriller, by Michael Jackson. Dead Man's Party, by Oingo Boingo. Re: Your Brains, by Jonathan Coulton. (I think a good case could be made for Chained to the Rhythm by Katy Perry, too.) I could go on. But I kind of have a soft spot for "African Zombie" by Alex Boye, so that's going to be my #1 pick.
And that's it for the week! Man, just two weeks left. Let's see if I can survive it.
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