We’re Mind-Blown By These Insanely Cool Halloween Makeup Ideas

If you’re obsessed with makeup tutorial videos, maybe you can pull off one of these mind-blowingly cool Halloween makeup ideas. Showing up with incredible makeup is a surefire way to stand out at a party. Without doing keg stands.

We’re going to start practicing these looks, from scary monsters to insanely realistic body horror, to gorgeous recreations of our favorite characters (like Pennywise and the Mad Hatter). Get ready to subscribe to our YouTube channel of Unsuccessful Attempts to Copy Pro Makeup Artists. Jk jk. Maybe.

Hey, if we don’t manage to pull these looks off, then we’ll just say our costume is “Someone Who Was Putting Makeup On While Getting Progressively Drunker.” At least that we’ve practiced.

 

42 Insanely Cool Halloween Makeup Ideas

1. Terrifying Surrealism

We know we’ve been looking tired lately, but this is some serious eye baggage. Have you tried Retinol?

 

2. Cheshire Cat Makeup Look

Most feline makeup lands on the cute kitty side, but this Cheshire Cat is freaky as hell. No wonder we’re all mad here.

 

3. Circus Clown Makeup

Traditional clown makeup can be a bit tired, even if you’re going for a scary clown. This half-and-half glam clown is totally new and only requires you to go blind in one eye. So that’s a plus.

 

4. Planet Her Halloween Makeup Idea

If you don’t feel like dressing as Doja Cat for Halloween, there’s always one of her album covers. Just don’t do Nirvana’s Nevermind.

 

5. Frankenbabe Eye Makeup Look

Sometimes you’re not able to fully commit to a costumed look. This peekaboo style of makeup is for those who only want to wear 1/38th of a costume.

 

6. Scream Halloween Makeup

Being sliced in the face never looked so hot. Actually, this may be the first time that it’s ever looked hot. Congrats on the achievement.

 

7. Scary Nun Makeup

We would have made more of an effort to learn how to color inside of the lines in Kindergarten if we knew someday we’d get to look this deliciously evil.

 

8. Pink Pennywise

Pink Pennywise is gorgeous, but the name isn’t hitting the way Barbenheimer does. It-Barbie? Barbie-It? PennyBarbie? Scary nightmare fuel that will take weeks to fully wash out of our bathtub?

No matter what you call it, this pink vision of terror is #goals.

 

9. Joker Makeup

We love this cool Halloween makeup idea because the design seems accessible to people who aren’t pros. We feel competent enough to scrawl “Ha” all over us. And if we can’t manage, at least we can laugh at ourselves in the mirror.

 

10. The Mad Hatter

This incredible Mad Hatter is much muchier with this popping eye makeup. And we are muchly impressed. And muchly hungry. Where’s something labeled “eat me” when you need it?

 

11. Bisexual Skull Makeup

In case the club you’re going to on Halloween night doesn’t provide bisexual lighting, you can travel with your own. Then you won’t have to rely on your bisexual sitting position to clue people in.

 

12. Inner Devil Makeup

Throw on a Prada ‘fit with this makeup, and your costume is set. You have several thousand to spare, right?

 

13. Trippy Monster

We love this bright Two-Face meets Oscar the Grouch vibe. We’d be grouchy, too, if half of our face was ripped open. As it is, we’re grouchy just because, so this is a stellar excuse.

 

14. Glam Jigsaw Makeup Idea

This is for the girlies who want to be scary cute. If we were doing this look, we would absolutely track down an adult-size tricycle for our commute. Learning how to ride it is a whole separate issue.

 

15. Skin Mask

This patchwork Silence of the Lambs-esque look works well if you don’t feel motivated to dress in anything but jeans and a flannel. Not that doing this makeup look is easier than buying a costume off Amazon.

 

16. Mystique Makeup

We’ve been looking for an excuse to rock our bright blue zentai suit we drunk-ordered. And the blue body paint we also drunk-ordered. What? We were watching Avatar.

 

17. Pinhead Makeup

Pinhead has such sights to show us, and as long as one of them is this cool makeup idea, we’re here for it. The pins double as repellent for when that drunk guy inevitably tries to make out with you at the party.

 

18. Uzumaki Makeup

Once you have the skill for this manga-inspired Uzumaki look, you can win every ’90s costume contest. We see free beer in your future.

 

19. Melting Jack-O-Lantern Makeup

Maybe you’ve never aspired to be the Pumpkin King. Maybe your pumpkin aspirations are to look like a jack o’ lantern the week after Halloween, when it’s been rained on a few times and nibbled by squirrels. You know, to each their own.

 

20. Zombie Coming Alive Makeup

Is this real? Is it AI? We can’t tell anymore. All we know is that our unzombified brains can’t begin to fathom how this was done.

 

21. Exposed Brain Makeup

There are so many options for this cool Halloween makeup idea—the “Brain” cenobite, Ray Liotta in Hannibal, and us after we tried to figure out the previous look.

 

22. Butterflies of Death Makeup

This butterfly effect is one way to make sure you don’t eat too much of the Halloween party food. We thought the secret was carrying a clutch, but it turns out it’s a mouthful of butterfly wings.

 

23. Inky Spider Eyes Makeup

Some of the dreadful eeriness of this arachnoid look is from the solid black contact lenses. But if you don’t have them, don’t worry. Spiders with giant eyeballs on their backs may be even scarier.

 

24. Flower Girl Skull Makeup

Pretty faerie girlies can like skulls, too. Sugar and spice, meet doom and gloom. Uh, we’ll seat you separately at dinner.

 

25. Mushroom Queen Makeup

You know, we used to love to cook and eat mushrooms for a fungal feast, and then we watched The Last of Us. And then we saw this picture. And then we backed slowly away from the grocery store portobellos.

 

26. Beetlejuice Skull Makeup

Of course the ghost with the most must have a skeleton under his grotesque visage, but we’d never thought about it before. Now all we can do is wonder how we can dye our skull purple.

 

27. Venom Halloween Makeup Idea

We know that Halloween is the time to dress as sexy whatevers, but this is the first Sexy Venom we’ve seen. Unfortunately, we can’t unsee it. Maybe that’s the next innovation in AI?

 

28. Color Changing Creepers

Butterflies, tarantulas. Butterfly-tarantulas. This is why you pay attention in science class, kids.

 

29. Galactic Troll

We think we’ve finally found our gender, and it’s this otherworldly troll. We won’t be taking any questions at this time.

 

30. Falling Apart Makeup

This is the first Halloween costume we’ve seen that feels a little close to home. And not just because the GPS says five minutes.

 

31. Sketchy Skull Makeup Look

This comic book–like design manages to be gruesome and terrifying without any bright colors in the gore. No need to ruin your neutral aesthetic on behalf of Halloween.

 

32. Jason Voorhees Mask

This is so much smarter than wearing a hockey mask. First of all, you can eat and drink all you want easily. Also, people won’t think you’re from Sudbury.

 

33. Asylum Makeup

Why are people always trying to make nuns scarier? Hasn’t it already been established that there is nothing scarier than a nun? Don’t come for us, Sister Mary Dolorosa.

 

34. Two Faced

We are shook. We are gagged. We are confused. We need to sit down.

 

35. Caution Tape Makeup

We’re not sure what kind of party it would be appropriate to wear this to, but as soon as we figure it out, we’ll angle for an invite.

 

36. Look Into My Eyes Makeup

We love those little balls of chocolate that come wrapped in the foil bloodshot eyeball wrappers. This is what we look like after raiding our little cousin’s trick-or-treat bag for them.

 

37. All Teeth

If Orcs have beauty contests, we have a contender. We’ll wear slightly fewer teeth and go for Miss Congeniality.

 

38. Facial Peel

Someone call Jello Biafra, we have a plastic surgery disaster on our hands! And all over our face.

 

39. Birthday Clown

Now make a wish. Our wish is that a clown never comes to one of our birthday parties.

 

40. Holographic Butterfly

This ethereal look combines the features of a skull with butterfly wings. She’s probably got butterflies in her stomach, too, we just can’t see them, unless MAC released an x-ray setting powder we don’t know about.

 

41. Zebra Goddess

We had no idea zebras could look so high fashion. If this is the new Balenciaga collection, we’ll see you on the runway.

 

42. Ouija Board Makeup

This will be our day-to-day look going forward. In fact, we’re calling our tattoo artist. Employability? Job? What job?