Gaping Maw Halloween FX Makeup Tutorial

Hello Fiends!

Since it's spooky season, I redid a makeup look and took it out clubbing to my favourite local gothy haunt, Intrusion, and I had so many people asking how I did it that I thought I'd write up a quick tutorial. It's not my original idea, and I foolishly forgot to take photos of the process of constructing it, but it's so cheap and easy to do I'm sure you'll be wanting to give it a go next time you want to terrify people!

All you need is:

Liquid latex (about 15 ml)
False nails (I used a whole packet of 24 nails from Primark) in white or ivory
Tissues
Flesh-coloured foundation or face paint
Red-coloured lipstick and/or fake blood
Nude coloured lipstick (or mix together the red with some foundation/face paint to make a pinky colour)
Translucent face powder
A lot of time and patience (it took me just under 2 hours to do the mouth alone)

Before you start

Make sure your face is clean and dry. Since this takes a long time, you'll probably want to be sitting down a a desk or table. It can get messy, so make sure you're wearing something that you don't mind getting makeup on. It you're planning on wearing an elaborate outfit with this look, you'll either want to put it on after you've finished the makeup or put an old t-shirt on over the top. Tie back your hair or wear a hairband to keep hair from getting caught in the latex.

Step 1

Using a bit of foundation or a light coloured eyeliner, draw out a rough guideline of where you want the mouth to be. If you're going for the same sort of shape as I used, draw a horizontal line an inch or so above your top lip to the hollows of your cheeks, then draw a second line an inch or so below your bottom lip that curves around to meet the top line. Essentially, you're drawing a big goofy smile around your face, but try to have the bottom curved line follow parallel to your jawline so that when you're finished, the mouth will hinge open when you speak, as shown below.

Image courtesy of Mark Wickson, resident Dj and official photographer for Intrusion.

You can find even more of his work on his Instagram and the official Intrusion Instagram

Step 2

Leaving the inside of the mouth shape completely unpainted, do the rest of your makeup however you like. How you do it is up to you, but for inspiration I've included some pictures from both times I tried this look throughout this post. For my first attempt I just did a spooky smudgey eye and some contouring, last week's version was more of a conventional gothy look. Either way, you might find you want to contour your nose a little heavier than usual so it doesn't get lost, but you'll only need a little contour on your cheeks since the mouth will be covering most of it. Just make sure you don't over your mouth outline., as latex sticks better to skin than it does to makeup.

Step 3

Now we're going to build a "lip" that will be the base for our mouth prosthetic. Take a tissue and, if it's more than one ply, separate out one single sheet. Tear off a small strip about an inch or so wide and a few inches long. Now take the latex and wet the scrap of tissue so that it's saturated but not dripping, and roll the we tissue into a sausage shape. Starting at the corners of the guideline, place the sausage over the line you drew earlier. Once you're happy with its position, tear off another strip, wet it, shape it, and then position it along the line, jutting up right next to the last one. It doesn't matter if they overlap slightly, but you don't want any big bumps or gaps. Continue this process until the you have a raised "lip" all the way along the outline. If you make a mistake, you can still move the latex-tissue mixture around as long as it's still wet, so make sure you fix anything wonky relatively quickly.

Step 4

Before we start adding the teeth, we now need to paint the inside of the mouth. Take your red lipstick or facepaint and cover the space inside of the latex "lip", including your real lips. If you want to add an extra saliva-like quality, cover this layer with another layer of fake blood, lip gloss, or glossy lipstick. If by now you look like you're doing a sub-par Joker cosplay, you're on the right track.

Step 5

Now we're onto the most time consuming but coolest part of this look, the teeth! Take one of the smallest nails, the ones designed for your little finger, and tear off a piece of tissue that's a little shorter than the ones we used to build the lip, but still long enough to leave a bit of a gap on either side of the nail. Coat the tissue with latex but don't roll it up this time, Instead, place it over the base of the nail so that the point of the nail is still exposed and the nail sits roughly in the middle of the tissue. Carefully position the so that it sits at the bottom corner of the "lip" and pat the wet tissue down onto the nail and onto the "lip" around it. Grab another smallish nail, another scrap of tissue and repeat this process, placing the nail next to the last one.

As you get closer to the middle, use progressively larger nails, then back to smaller ones as you work your way to the opposite side.When you move onto thee top lip, try to stagger the nails so that the points of those on the top lip sit in the spaces between the teeth on the bottom lip. Make sure to leave a bit of a gap somewhere where you can slip in a straw when you need a drink (or if you smoke, to pop a cigarette in, exhaling smoke through the "teeth" is way too much fun)

This is also the stage where the most annoying mishaps tend to happen, especially as sticky latex starts building up on your hands and sticking to the prosthetic. If you end up dislodging a nail or two like this, don't worry. Give your hands a quick clean and put the nails back with a fresh piece of tissue.

Step 6

Once you have all of your nail "teeth" in place, it's time to clean up the edges of the prosthetic. Part of the charm of this look is that if it's a bit messy, if there are edges that aren't completely smooth for example, it doesn't detract from the look since it has a sort of mangled flesh vibe to it, but even so we want it to look uncanny but believable. Tear off a piece of tissue, wet it with latex and place it flat over the edge of the "lip", smoothing it out away from the "teeth". If there are any spots where the join between your skin and the latex is more obvious,you may want to use a couple of strips of tissue. If there isn't enough room between the prosthetic and your nose, just leave that bit for now. Once you're gone all the way around the edge with latex and tissue, if there are still some little gaps, take a sponge (or your fingers) and dab a little latex directly into that spot.

Step 7

Take your foundation and apply a generous layer all the way around the prosthetic, being careful not to cover the teeth, and blend it out into the makeup you did earlier on the rest of your face. You may find you need to go back in and touch up any contouring.

Step 8

Take your nude coloured lipstick (or face paint) and paint it around the edge of the teeth. This is going to be both the gum and the lip of this creature, so try to follow the curve of the nails and paint in between the gaps if there are any larger ones. Once you've defined the edges of the teeth, lightly dab a little of the same lipstick over the "lip" of the prosthetic. The colour should be more concentrated near the teeth and grow fainter as you move away.

Step 9

Dust a liberal helping of translucent powder over the whole thing. I always find makeup refuses to dry properly over latex, so you'll probably need to use more than you would normally use on your face.

Step 10 (optional)

With some glossy red lipstick or fake blood, paint just a little along the edges of some of the teeth and in between then, over the "gum" we painted earlier. You don' want to completely cover all the work you did earlier, so don't overdo it!

And you're finished! Go out and terrify people!

The prosthetic should stay put for a good few hours, it might feel loose long before it starts to show. Last week, mine was still clinging on firmly to my cheeks a good six hours afterwards. To remove the prosthetic, simply peel it away and wash any remaining latex off with soap and water. If you're anything like me, you might find that even if you're not allergic to latex, your skin doesn't take kindly to all this irritation, so make sure you have a robust moisturiser on hand!