Ever wanted to make up your face for Halloween, but it just wouldn’t turn out right?

Tired of wearing your own face or spending way too much money on a mask? If only you could make a quick face like a pro.

Charity Gardner has some tips for Halloween face makeup ideas. Gardner, a musical theatre senior from Bowling Green, has plenty of experience in stage makeup.

Here are some things you’ll need before you start costuming your face:

A small sponge or cotton ball, Q-tips, an eye shadow brush, paper towels and, of course, a mirror.

Steps to make an easy “dead guy” face:

1. Get a sponge, and start with white makeup. Blot it on your face. It doesn’t have to be even, just splotchy and clammy looking.

“We’re not going for a clown-dead, we’re going for a real person-dead,” Gardener explained.

2. Then, sponge purple makeup on the bags of your eyes. Don’t make it too heavy, just a light purple. Carry up a little bit in order to put some on the sides of your eyes and on your actual eyelid. This will give you a hollowed-out look.

3. If you can feel where your cheekbones are, relax your jaw and dab under there with purple. This makes your cheeks look sunken. Blot the purple on your lip and around your nose.

4. Then, if you want something extra, you can always go with the red around your eyes and lips with your cotton swab or eye-shadow brush. Put it on the bottom lash-line for an “awake from the dead” look.

5. You can also wipe the cotton swab in the crease of your lip and make it red in the middle; drizzle it down the corner of your mouth a little bit so it looks like you are bleeding out of your mouth.

Usually, the makeup used here – white, red, purple and darker purple – can be found in an inexpensive special Halloween makeup kit at stores such as Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby or Target.

To give yourself the face of the witch:

1. Start out with the normal foundation color that you would use.

2. Take a medium brown eye shadow, and put it on either side of your nose in order to give your honker a crooked or pointy look.

3. Put white eye shadow on the bridge of your nose for a highlight. Then choose whichever color eye shadow you would like – here we use purple.

“You can use your own discretion as to how you put that eye shadow on,” Gardener said. Putting eye shadow all over the lids and to the corners of your eyes gives cat-eyes.

4. Since most people’s eyebrows are light, you can use black eyeliner on your eyebrows to make them more pronounced. You may also use eyeliner and mascara on your eyelashes for a dramatic look.

5. To make your cheekbones look prominent, brush the eye shadow on the top of the whole cheekbone.

6. You can use whatever color lipstick you want to complete your witch look. If you use hair color spray, make sure it’s washable, and be careful if you have naturally blonde hair because it is harder to wash dark colors out of blonde hair.

Both these looks can be completed in 15 minutes or less.

Afterward:

If you don’t want to stay looking like a dead guy forever, follow these steps:

1. Wipe off your face with a paper towel.

2. Smooth Noxema cold cream on with your fingers and wash your face off. If makeup still remains, follow it up with face-wash.

Witches have it easier. All you need to do to get rid of your witch face is to use regular makeup remover or face-wash.

If you ever need help with makeup, contact Charity Gardner.

Reach Tabitha Waggoner at diversions@chherald.com.