Tutorial: Vintage Vamp Look For Halloween

Want a Halloween costume that’s sure to turn heads? Bring your vintage and spooky vibes together with this Vintage Vamp look. A vamp is a female character type, sometimes also called a “femme fatale,” from classic film or TV. She uses her charms and her beauty to lead men into dangerous (or even deadly) traps. Vamps are enchanting and enticing, but also dark and mysterious, and some even have magic abilities. Since she is typically similar to a “vampire” (hence the name) as a supernatural being that lurks in the dark, her features typically include blanched, pale skin that has never seen the light of day, and eyes that are dark and alluring. We think this is such a fun and unique idea for a Halloween costume! 

Though vamps as characters have shown up in literature since the 19th century, the look we created using a few go-to Bésame products is inspired by the spooky, beautiful, vintage vamp characters of the 1950s, such as Morticia Addams, Vampira, and Lily Munster. Ready to begin your transformation into a Vintage Vamp? Just follow these steps! Here’s what you’ll need:

• A long black dress
• A long black wig
• Black fingernail polish (you could also do a dark red polish)
• A glue stick
• Our Get-The-Look: Vintage Vamp products (which are… The Sleeping Beauty Eyeshadow Palette, Black Cake Mascara, 1925 Forever Red, and Porcelain Cashmere Powder)
• A pair of dramatic fake lashes
• An eyeshadow brush, a liner brush, and a rouge brush.
  

Now, here’s how to create this Vintage Vamp look.

1. Using a glue stick (any craft glue stick will do), completely cover your eyebrows with the glue following the direction of your eyebrow hair. You want your brows to be stuck flat to your face so they are easy to cover up! You may omit this step if you already have very thin, very arched brows.

2. Allow time for the glue to completely dry. Then, using a damp sponge applicator or beauty blender, cake on Porcelain Cashmere Powder over the brows to completely cover them up by pressing the product into the brow. Depending on the thickness and darkness of your eyebrows, it may take a few layers of powder to get to the desired result. Be sure to press the powder in, not feather. At a glance, it should look like you have no eyebrows. Again, if you already shape your brows thinly with very high arches, you can skip this step.

3. Once your natural brows have disappeared, it’s time to use 1920 Black Cake Mascara and draw on new eyebrows with a thin liner brush. Even though these new brows are exaggerated, they should still resemble actual eyebrows. You don’t want to simply draw thin upside-down V shapes above the eye with one single line as that may give a cartoon-like appearance. Brows should be thickest toward your nose and get gradually thinner as they extend out toward your temples. Try following the shape where your eyebrows used to be, but exaggerating them to be a bit longer and lower on the inner and outer ends, and then much higher and pointed at the arch point. 

4. Now that your brows are complete, it’s time to move onto your eyes. Start by using a damp eyeshadow brush and applying Porcelain Cashmere Powder onto the entire eyelid. Use a pressing motion instead of a sweeping motion to pack the powder on and give a richer color payoff. 

5. Next, use 89352 from the Sleeping Beauty Eyeshadow Palette to apply to the crease of the eye. This will create a deep socket and a slightly “bulging” eye appearance, which is what we are going for. Be sure to blend in circular motions!

6. Using our Black Cake Mascara again and a thin liner brush, line your top lash line with a 1950s style cat-eye. It shouldn’t be as thick as a 60s liner but also not as thin as a 40s liner; somewhere in the middle, with a flick upward at the ends.

7. Add your false lashes on now as close to your natural lashes as you can. Try and choose lashes that are long and fanned out, but not too thick. This is to add to the cat-eye shape to enhance the eye. For easiest eyelash application, start by setting the strip in the center of the lash line, to get a better angle when pressing it into the corners of the lashline. Once the eyelash glue has set, apply a couple of coats of cake mascara to your lashes with a slight wiggling motion to blend your lashes to the strip. 

8. Cover your entire face and neck with Porcelain Cashmere Powder with the same pressing motion. Using the White 107 shadow from the Eyeshadow Palette, contour your face to give it a more harsh bone structure. Contour under your cheekbones, under your jawline, temples, and the top of the forehead where your hairline/wigline falls, your chin, and the sides of the nose. Blend it all with a fluffy brush like our rouge brush.

9. Lastly, let’s focus on creating some vampy lips! Line your lips by “over-drawing” them (follow outside the line of your lips to give them a fuller look) using Black Cake Mascara and a liner brush. Give yourself a 50s-styled lip shape, very sharp and precise including a cupid’s bow.

10. Next, fill in the lips using three coats of 1925 Forever Red, then blot to keep it in place. If you want, you could also opt for a darker shade of lipstick such as 1922 Blood Red or 1930 Noir Red.

11. Style your wig to look positively vampy, wear a long and elegant black dress, and paint your claws (oh, I mean… nails…) to be a dark and dramatic shade. Now you certainly look the part… so go stir up a little trouble and embrace your inner Vintage Vamp!