Costume #7: Pirates
This was a really fun one.
I wore a striped shirt and black slacks, then added a maroon skirt-- but I used some black yarn to tie it up in front. It didn't look quite as cool in real life as in my head, but I think it added something. The boot toppers are left over from a costume I wore in High school-- just bits of fake leather with the Jolly Roger, tied to my legs and with elastics over my shoes.
I did a few braids in my hair of varying styles, lengths, and widths, then put it all up with a bandanna. I didn't have an eye patch, so I painted one on using black creme Halloween makeup and eyeliner. I used a dark lipstick, and overdrew my lips for a more angular look that I thought looks tougher and more aggressive.
Time: 1 Hour, 30 minutes. It would have been faster with a simpler hair style, or if I used an actual eye patch instead of painting one.
Co-Worker Reactions: Tons of employees dressed up for this one, but I did still manage to stand out a bit with my makeup job, and I got some very nice compliments.
Customer Reactions: While most customers didn't visibly react, I did get quite a few comments. Mostly, everyone seems to love the eye patch. I just thought that was me being too cheap to buy an actual eye patch, but there were several customers who stopped me just to say how much they liked the eyepatch. I did decide that the eyepatch was a good idea because this outfit was for Labor Day-- meaning a big 50% off sale, meaning that the store was a zoo, and I needed all my depth perception to get racks of clothing from one side of the store to the other without running over anyone. Even with both eyes open, I still looked like I was wearing an eye-patch from a distance, so it was a good way to get the best of both worlds.
After work I took off to help my brother move into the student dorms at BYU. A few minutes in, my Dad asked me to wash the makeup off-- I think my parents were a little embarrassed about me dressing like this in public away from work.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Aye, that I would. In fact, I did, back in high school, though I did a much better job on the hair and makeup this time around. If this was my main costume, I'd add a sword and maybe a jacket, or replace the shirt with a white long-sleeved shirt and a corset. Also, one of these days I want to get a nice tri-corner hat.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Oh, there are SO MANY amazing pirate songs to choose from-- from The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything to Professional Pirate. But for the best Halloween Pirate song, I'd have to go with Hoist the Colors, by Hans Zimmer. (Also doubles as a great Zombie song in some circles, thanks to some very clever mind games in one year's Humans Vs Zombies event at USU)
Costume #8: Under the Sea
Going straight from Pirates to Under the Sea did make me feel like I was an extra for Alex Boye's cover of the song.
But, anyway, my costume:
My Mom owns a pair of fish-scale leggings, which she was kind enough to let me borrow for this costume. I wore them with a fitted black undershirt and a loose blue t-shirt. I really didn't have good shoes for this so I just wore my old mission shoes. I left my hair down, but did two fish-tail braids (get it? Get it?) on either side of my face and pulled them back, which helped keep my hair out of my face.
The make-up for this one was really fun. First I did some contouring with a base made of white and black eyeshadow-- you can't really see it, but that's because the purpose of the base was to make the blue stand out more.
Some lightings look more fish-like than others.
Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Co-Worker Reactions: There was one other person dressed up-- as the crab from Moana, which came out looking like some kind of monster clown. Later on, an employee came for a different shift dressed as an octopus. Everyone seemed to be pretty impressed with my costume; I got a lot of questions about how I did my makeup.
Customer Reactions: Mostly nothing, but one woman did ask me about it and we had a long chat about why the store is having us dress up and what some of the other costumes I'm doing are. She said that having the employees dress up makes shopping here a lot more fun.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Yes! I was actually really sad to take this costume off, I was so pleased with how it turned out. I really want another excuse to dress like this sometime soon.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Easy one: Poor Unfortunate Souls, by Alan Menken. And if you are in the need for a laugh, can I recommend to you the Google Translate Version? (I considered My Jolly Sailor Bold, but decided not to because I found the Pirates of the Caribbean take on mermaids to be disappointing. I mean, spooky singing mermaids-- cool, cool. But when the mermaids turn out to be evil they grow vampire teeth. Vampire teeth. There's an entire ocean full of fish with terrifying mouths-- sharks, angler fish, lampreys-- that would have made for awesome and terrifying mermaids. But, no, we have to make them into aquatic vampires. Probably the most boring thing they could have done with evil mermaids. That one faux documentary about mermaids had scarier mermaids than this. And obviously I'm still a little annoyed)
Costume #9: Alice In Wonderland
This costume almost threw me for a loop: they didn't include this one on the list, instead deciding to add another themed costume day and announcing it later on. The bad news for me is that they announced this in the afternoon, after I had gone home. In fact, no one thought to tell me about it-- I found out the day before when other employees started coming to me with costume questions like "How would I make a Cheshire cat tail?" and "Does this jacket work for the Mad Hatter?" This left me with just one night to put a costume together (throwing off my plans a little) --but I did manage to put together a playing card costume: the Ace of Hearts.
I had an old white shirt that had picked up some stains: I cut the sleeves off and painted a red heart. I used some red scrap fabric to make a heart-shaped patch, then sewed that onto the knee of a pair of white paints. I wore these with a black t-shirt, red socks, and my trusty knock-off converse.
I did the heart over my eye with a mixture of lipstick and red chalk pastel, then did a few other hearts and a letter A in eyeliner (and red lipstick on my lips too). Pretty simple.
Time: 2 hours prep, 30 minutes day of
Co-Worker Reactions: Mostly my co-workers just asked me what my costume was. When I said playing card, they'd follow up with, "Oh, I get it, you're the Queen of Hearts!" So apparently writing a letter A on my forehead wasn't enough for people to actually figure out what my costume was. There were quite a few people who dressed up today-- we had an Alice, a Cheshire Cat, a White Rabbit, two Mad Hatters, and an actual Queen of Hearts. There was also one terribly confused soul who showed up dressed as Dorothy, complete with ruby slippers.
Customer Reactions: No reaction today, which isn't horribly surprising since this was a pretty tame costume.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Maybe? I really enjoyed this costume, even if it didn't get very good reactions. I think it would be really great for a themed group or event.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Thriller/Heads Will Roll by Glee (though I went with a different music video made by a fan using some Disney clips)
Costume #10: Witches
Simple but classic costume. I dressed up in black and orange clothes, and borrowed a witch hat from the store I work at (allowed so long as I leave the price tag on). I didn't have any orange/black striped socks, so I took a pair of black knee highs and some orange acrylic paint and made myself a pair the night before.
The hat was actually a royal pain. It wasn't quite large enough, so I was less wearing it and more balancing it on my head, and every little breeze sent it falling off.
I kept the makeup simple but fun. Orange eye shadow, black lipstick, some stars and moons drawn out of eye liner. I quite liked how it turned out; maybe I should do my makeup like this more often outside of costume.
Time: Forty minutes prep, 20 minutes day of.
Co-Worker Reactions: I did get several compliments on this. Also several people asking if I was a good witch or a bad witch.
Customer Reactions: Nothing from the adults, but I did hear several kids talking behind my back: "Look, it's a witch!" "Is that a witch? It's a witch!" etc
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Yes, but only if I could find a hat that actually fit.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: There are so many good Witch themed Halloween Songs, but I had to go with I Put A Spell On You by Bette Midler. (Actually, it was originally written in the 1950s by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and the original is pretty great too.)
Costume #11: Movie Stars
OK, so maybe you are looking at the above image and saying, 'Eh, Jennifer broke out the photoshop'. In which case I need to tell you that, 1) I use Gimp, not photoshop, because I am poor. Also, 2) My photomanipulation skills are way better than that, if I'd done this with a computer it would look waaaaay better. In fact, here's a good comparison, a photo of my Mom I edited to look like a film noir detective:
See? Way cooler. Though maybe that's just the subject making it look cool. Fun fact, both photos do contain the same hat.
Anyway. As further evidence, have a terrible video of me dancing in costume.
The clothes are an assortment of black, white, and grey items from my closet. I actually had to double up two pairs of nylon socks to keep skin color from coming through. The gloves appeared previously in my Minion costume (Costume #2). I even replaced the red lanyard that I wear my employee badge on with a black one-- though I ran out of time to include a black and white version of the name badge itself, which has a colored logo.
Do you understand now why I decided I really did need to buy some costume makeup?
I was going for Film Noir, but I keep looking at this and thinking The Spine from the band Steam Powered Giraffe.
I put my hair into a chignon (a kind of bun) then sprayed it with black hair-spray. I did a mixture of white and black creme makeups to make the grey base, then used black and white eye shadow to add some highlights and shadows. I wore black lipstick, and used mascara to color my eyebrows and touch up anywhere that my hair needed more black.
The tutorials I based this on did a much better job-- I missed a lot of spots and the results are too dark and too shiny to really look like a black and white film come to life. The cheap makeup also got kind of patchy as the day went on (when I got out of costume to take a shower later I discovered tiny flakes of grey paint all down my front). But it still manages to be pretty striking, I think, and it photographs better than it looks in real life. I'm not completely satisfied with how my makeup turned out, but I'm probably being too hard on myself.
Time: Two Hours
Co-Worker Reactions: Got a few compliments. One woman said it was "scary", which I didn't expect to hear-- but she's Korean so there might be some culture context there I'm not getting.
Customer Reactions: I'm going to stop doing this Reaction section, I think. There's a general cycle with each of these costumes-- the other employees notice and I get lots of compliments which makes me feel good about myself, and then we open the store and the customers all ignore me and I feel disappointed. Today was more or less the same, other than a few double takes from small children.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Yes. This is the hardest costume I've done so far for this challenge, and if I did it again I'd want to invest in some higher quality makeup (and do a few practice runs to try and get the exact look I wanted). But I really like the idea, and for the right occasion or photo opportunity it would definitely be worth it. Sadly, I think this look was a little wasted on the thrift store shopping in September crowd.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: I had a few ideas for this-- Safe and Sound was considered because the music video features black and white dancers stepping into the real world, but it's not very Halloween. Another idea was Build Our Machine, a song made for a horror game featuring black and white cartoon characters. But in the end, I decided to go with an era appropriate Halloween Song: The Little Man Who Wasn't There, by Mildred Bailey.
Anyway, that's another week down-- and what a crazy week it was! I'm definitely ready to give my skin a bit of a break before diving into next weeks costumes.
Thank you for reading, and enjoy your not exactly Halloween!
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