Halloween: Elegant Cat Makeup Tutorial & Costume {No Fancy Facepaint or Special Skills Required!}

The key to this is the cat ears. I found these adorable lace cat ears with a diamanté net in Valleygirl. As a dyed in the wool cat lady with a penchant for sparkly anything, I HAD to buy them! Of course, I had nowhere to wear them but then I remembered that Halloween was around the corner. Naturally, I decided to combine all of my fave things (50’s fashion, makeup, cats & Halloween) into one little post. If you don’t get my total love of Halloween, you need to check out this post. But back to cat ears! As I said, I found mine in Valleygirl about two weeks ago but you could totally DIY them too with this lace cat ear headband tutorial. You can get net fabric at craft or fabric stores like Spotlight in Australia and JoAnns in the states. Glue on some diamantés and your done!

Since it’s hot here at Halloween, I went with a black sweetheart tank top and a black half circle skirt. If the weather was cooler, I would have worn my velvet top (day 30 of MMM 15) instead. I added long black gloves from the costume shop for that glamorous feel and this sparkly poncho thing that I found in an op shop. The poncho represents my cat collar. If I didn’t have this, I would have put on a set of pearls instead. These heeled version of my fave Mel by Melissa shoes just felt right! But I think anything black would probably suffice.

Other than the ears, it’s all about the make up! I am definitely not a makeup artist or an artist. Not even close! I can’t even draw a passable stick figure. Which means if I can get this done, you can! I have a full, step by step tutorial for you. It looks like a lot but I am showing every bit of detail I can. I have detailed every product along the way but use whatever you have. Nothing special in this at all. I have refrained from doing makeup tutorials because I think that I’m not that good but that’s a plus here! I’m just ordinary, not one of these insanely good artists who can do stuff like this. I wore this makeup for hours! Yep, typing this tutorial with full cat make up and ears on. It lasted beautifully! Just don’t rub your nose! Enough chat, let’s begin the transformation……….

1. Starting off with clean, moisturised skin. Add some primer all over. I used NYX Photo Loving Primer.

2. I wanted to be super glowy, so I mixed Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector into my foundation (MAC Pro Longwear in NW 25). Any liquid highlighter and foundation will do and you can skip the highlighter if you want. I used my trusty beauty blender to apply to my whole face.

3. I patted some Maybelline Fit Me Concealer in 20 Sand onto my under eye area.

4. A good dusting of your fave face powder all over, to set everything. I am loving the Aphrodite powder from Pumpkin & Poppy.

5. Prime those lids! I am using Too Faced Shadow Insurance at the moment. Fill in your brows too, I used Etude House Drawing Brow in 04 to pencil in the sparse spots and set it all in place with NYX Brow Mascara in Black.

6. Eye shadow time, I used beloved Makeup Geek (MUG) shadows. I dusted Vanilla Bean over the whole lid to make blending easier. I put In The Spotlight on the lid, focusing on the inner corner and dusted a tiny bit of Simply Marlena over it for the perfect sparkly, kitty cat pink. I blended Hipster into the crease for a little definition and put Shimma Shimma on the brow bone. Life’s too short, wear more shimmer!

7. Next up, I used my Rimmel Exaggerate eyeliner pencil in black to line my upper and lower waterlines. I also lined along my lower lashline.

8. Now to pick a black liquid liner, as you can see I like the pen format! I used Physicians Formula 2 in 1 Eye Booster in Ultra Black. I started with a thin line across my upper lash line and line on the outer corner, marking out my wing. Keep adding slowly until you have a huge wing. Make a small point at the inner corner and make sure everything is nice and black! If winged eyeliner drives you crazy, check out all the tips in this post and remember, huge is fine so don’t be frighted! Even I had to correct some mistakes.

9. Mascara and lashes are needed – stat! This new Rimmel Wake Me Up mascara doesn’t do a whole lot in terms of length or volume but it is super, super black. A good coat to both upper & lower lashes, maybe two on the lower is all you need to make sure your own lashes are black before lashes. You do kinda need HUGE lashes to get past all the black liner. I chose diamante ones to match my cat ears. I got these from ebay but Priceline have a few sparkly one too. This clear Ardell Lash Glue is my fave, it’s easy to apply and you don’t need to wait for it to go tacky. This little lash tweezer is great, again ebay or Priceline. For tips on applying lashes, see this post.

10. Today, you can go nuts with bronzer! I used Benefit Hoola and Thin Lizzy original with a super heavy hand under my cheek bones (think contour on crack!), around my forehead and down my neck.

11. Top that off with some liberal highlighting, I used The Balm Mary-Lou Manizer. Highlight your heart out!

12. You’ll need a creamy white product, I went with the ever popular NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk. I filled in my upper lip, extending onto my cheeks a little, in a sort of rounded shape. Then I blended the edges a bit with the beauty blender. Fingers or a brush will work too.

13. The fist full of eyeliners is back! I drew a shape of the cat nose onto my own with a liquid liner and filled it in with the same Rimmel pencil. You don’t want the nose to slide off, so pat some black eyeshadow over the top to set it. I used MUG Corrupt.

14. Make a black liner stripe down from your nose to meet your top lip.

15. Fill in your top lip with the eyeliner and line around your bottom lip. I wanted a lip product that would sort of set, reducing transfer, so I used Rimmel Apocolips in Apocoliptic to fill in my bottom lip. I smudged that in with a cotton bud.

16. Now, let’s finish this off! Use a liquid liner to make some dots and whiskers.

17. Now, spray yourself with a setting spray, I used NYX Dewy Setting Spray. Go get out on the prowl!!

OMG, you guys! This was so much fun to do and taking the pictures with Mummy Ask was a riot – I could hardly keep my whiskers on! I did the makeup (and we took the tutorial pics) at my house and then we traveled to Mummy Asks for the main photos. On the way we passed a quite serious car accident. We naturally slowed right down as we passed the slew of emergency services. I forgot I had this makeup on and wondered why a burly fireman was giggling at me! Of course I realized and had a good giggle myself! No one was injured but the cars were in bad shape. At least I was able to lighten the mood! I adore dressing up (as discussed with Kara) and this was no exception. I think life is too short and serious. I love being able to break all the makeup and fashion rules like this. If you are not a Halloween person or at least you won’t be celebrating, I hope you enjoyed my revelry! And if you need a costume in a hurry, this is purr-fect! You know I had to go there! Enjoy all that Halloween has to offer because as I’ve said, it’s much more than costumes and horror! But for now I wish you a dark and spooky night, filled with distant meows…

P.S – Should a serious makeup person be cruising this blog, yes, the photos are corrected because the lighting on the day was absolutely awful! It was stormy and grey and the sun was that harsh overcast kind. After I’d been wearing the makeup for 4-5 hrs (and accidentally rubbed my nose) the sun came out and we took the 4 photos in the doorway (the last set before the tutorial) and they are completely as is. I only darkened the crap in the background. None of the tutorial photos were retouched, just taken in the crappy lighting in my bathroom plus whatever sun chose to peek through the clouds.