My son is pretty much obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy. His words, not mine. He wants to see it again, which would be his fifth time watching the movie in the theaters. When I asked him if he wanted to be one of the characters from the film for Halloween, he said he needed to be Star Lord and that his childhood friend should definitely be Gamora. Star Lord doesn’t wear makeup (we’re on the hunt for the costume currently), so here is my Gamora-inspired DIY that’s fun and simple to do (I promise).
Make sure your teen properly washes and moisturizers her face so the makeup can go on smoothly. Apply KRYOLAN’s green (from the Rainbow Color Wheel) with a makeup sponge applicator. You can use regular green face paint found at the Halloween stores, but I find the finish to be chalky and not long lasting. The quality of your paint is the trick in making your painting look great (even if art is not your thing).
After you finish coloring the entire face in green, it’s time to focus on the eyes. I used Ben Nye’s Misty Violet as eye shadow and created a cat eye with Artiba Liquid Eyeliner. To add more drama, you can apply false lashes. I used Katy Perry’s pre-glued Pretty lashes by Eylure. They worked great and did not require extra glue at all. I finished the eye by adding a bit of the Misty Violet to the bottom lid to create a smokey eye because aliens need to look good too. (And guess who can’t stop hearing Katy Perry’s Alien playing in her head now?)
Gamora has these interesting little geometric patterns on her face, which are what alien birthmarks look like (I mean, who doesn’t know that?). Do not fret if you cannot get these right. A simple hint will do, and don’t worry about getting the lines perfectly straight. To create the lines, I used L’Oreal’s Silkissime in silver instead of white. Who doesn’t love a bit of shimmer on Halloween?
Just when I was about to combine a few colors to make a dark green lip color like Gamora, I decided to try out a L’Oreals’ Silkissime Green Ivy eye liner as the lip color to give her lips a bit of shine (and I think it looks pretty cool). And since I was getting shimmer happy, I felt like adding a bit more purple to the eyes as well. I used Shea Moisture eyeshadow in Taylor to break up some of the green.
Gamora has a deep burgundy/purple ombre (depends on which picture you look at), which I wanted to recreate. But my wonderful model had spent a long time blow drying her beautiful locks, so I didn’t want to apply anything to her hair that would ruin her family dinner plans. Plus, for this particular hairstyle a spray-on color is just messy and unnecessary. For an ombre look, all you need to do is go to your nearest beauty store, and purchase clip-in extensions. I used 16″ color strips by Pop in purple and it worked out perfectly.
To finish the entire look, the only thing your teen needs is a dark-colored vest and a pair of skinnies. I just so happened to have a dark gray leather vest from Zara from years ago. But any vest will do.
See? It was simple. So now that you spent an hour prepping your teen for an evening of goulish fun, you get to stay home and worry as your sweet child ventures out into the wild world of Halloween night. Just kidding. OK, not really. I’m a perpetual worrier. I will be home patiently waiting for my son to return (with a bag of candy for mom, of course!).
Rachel Matos, is the blogger behind the art and style blog The Art Muse. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts and pursuing graduate work in Modern Art at Columbia University, Rachel worked in the museum field for close to seventeen years as a lecturer, programs/events curator and exhibited artist. Utilizing all of her art world experiences, Rachel is now a freelance writer and is the Director of Social media and Blogger Relations at LatinaBloggers Connect.
