Skeleton Makeup for Beginners: An Easy Step-by-Step Skull Face

You do not need a professional kit. A beginner set, based on the materials lists from makeup artist Jill Marie Peterson's Martha Stewart tutorial and Cara Lovello's Allure tutorial, looks like this:

• White and black face paint made for skin
• A black eyeliner or brow pen
• A dark eyeshadow, such as black or a deep smoky shade
• Translucent setting powder, or a setting spray
• A foundation brush or makeup sponge
• A fluffy blending eyeshadow brush
• A small angled detail brush for the teeth and fine lines
• Makeup remover

The main choice is between cream paint and water-activated paint. Cream paint gives solid, opaque coverage and can be pushed around with a brush or sponge, but it tends to transfer onto collars and cups unless you set it with powder or spray. Water-activated paint is mixed with water before use, and it works well for both face and body painting. As one example, Mehron describes its Fantasy FX formula as water-based and highly pigmented, removable with soap and water, and not needing powder to set. Any brand made for skin will do; what matters most is that the label says it is meant for the face.

This sequence works for a first try. Take your time on the mapping in step 2; it decides whether the finished face reads as a skull.

1. Start with a clean, dry face. Apply a thin, even layer of white face paint or cream with a sponge or brush. Leave the eye sockets and the hollows of your cheeks a little lighter on paint, since they will be shaded dark anyway.
2. Map the eye sockets. With a brow pencil or black paint, lightly sketch the outline of each socket. Follow your brow bone on top, drop below the under-eye area, curve out toward the cheek and in toward the bridge of your nose. Go much wider than your eyelid; a socket that only traces the lid ends up looking like a smoky eye.
3. Fill the sockets. Pack them with black paint or a smoky dark eyeshadow.
4. Paint the nose. Draw the outline of the nose cavity and fill it in black.
5. Shade the cheek and jaw hollows. Find the hollow under your cheekbone and mark it with black or dark shadow, then do the same along the jaw. Blend the edges softly into the white so they look like depth rather than stripes.
6. Draw the grin. Extend a line from each corner of your mouth out across the cheeks. Then use the angled detail brush to draw individual teeth across your lips and past the natural mouth line, top and bottom.
7. Highlight. Add touches of white to the teeth and to the raised bone areas, such as the top of the cheekbones and the brow.
8. Set and finish. Dust translucent powder over cream areas, or mist with setting spray, to cut down on smearing. If you want to keep going, add bones down your neck and along your collarbones.

Peterson's method for Martha Stewart builds the sockets with layered black, purple and silver shadow for extra dimension, draws the teeth extended and pointed at the roots, adds a black nose and neck shading, and finishes with powder or spray. Lovello, a makeup artist from Bridgewater, New Jersey, published her five-step glam skeleton in Allure on October 2, 2023. She maps the anatomy first, lays down white paint, blends smoky shadows, sharpens it with black liquid eyeliner and adds gems if you want sparkle.

The difference between a convincing skull and a white face with black patches is depth. Lovello's approach in Allure is to treat it as bone structure: map the sockets around the brow and cheekbones, deepen the nose and jaw hollows, blend the dark shades softly into the white base, and then add lighter highlights on the parts of a skull that stick out, the cheekbones, the brow and the teeth.

It helps to have a real reference. A public-domain diagram of the facial skeleton on Wikimedia Commons shows where the eye sockets, the nasal opening and the cheekbones sit, which makes the mapping step much easier. Prop it up next to your mirror. If you want more skull trivia while the paint dries, our story on human skull facts has plenty, and how to draw a skull covers the same shapes on paper.

Once you have the basic face, there are plenty of ways to change it up.

Half skull. One side of your face stays in everyday or glam makeup, and the other becomes a skull. In Mehron's half-skull tutorial, published October 16, 2018, one side gets a red-and-black glam eye while the skull side is painted in blue, white and black Paradise Makeup AQ, a water-activated paint, and the design keeps going down the neck, shoulders and chest. Glamour published its own half-skull look with makeup artist Lijha Stewart on September 29, 2021.

Glam skeleton. Add shimmer, glitter, colored shadow, gems or false lashes to the classic face. Makeup artist Maritza Alis has a glam skeleton and body-paint tutorial that shows how far the sparkle can go.

Full face and beyond. A full-face skeleton paints both sides and can carry on down the neck and over the collarbones. A full-body version extends the bones across the chest, shoulders, arms or torso. If you go that far, you will want to know how many bones are in the human body, though nobody at the party will count.

A note on one look that often gets mixed in: Catrina and sugar-skull makeup, with flowers, color and decorative details, belong to Día de Muertos, a living tradition with its own meaning. They are not just another skeleton variation. If that is the look you want, our Catrina makeup story covers it properly.

Nearly every first skeleton face runs into one of these, and all of them are fixable.

Cara Lovello warns specifically that rushing the blending is what makes the result muddy, and that muddy paint is hard to clean up. For the teeth, Jill Marie Peterson recommends outlining, layering and highlighting each tooth one at a time, which is slower but makes them look like actual teeth rather than a row of stripes.

Halloween makeup counts as a cosmetic. The US Food and Drug Administration classifies Halloween and theatrical makeup as cosmetics, which means the same rules on color additives apply. According to the FDA's color additives fact sheet and its page on novelty makeup, these are the points to follow:

• Use products made for skin, and follow the label. Never use craft paint, automotive paint or anything not meant for the face.
• Check where a color is allowed. A color approved for hair or nails may not be approved for facial skin, and a color approved for skin may not be approved near the eyes. Read the label before using bright colors around your eyes.
• Keep makeup out of your eyes.
• Test first. The FDA suggests trying a small amount on your arm for a couple of days before putting an unfamiliar product on your face, especially if you are prone to allergies.
• Take it off before bed. The FDA notes that leaving makeup on too long can irritate skin and let flakes get into the eyes. Remove it with the cleanser the label suggests, such as cold cream, soap and water or eye-makeup remover, and go gently around the eyes.
• Stop if your skin reacts. If a product causes a rash, itching, swelling or irritation, stop using it and get medical advice if you need it.

The arm test is a simple home precaution, not a medical test. DermNet, a dermatologist-written reference, explains that formal patch testing for skin allergies is a separate medical test done by professionals, so if you have a history of reactions, a doctor is the person to ask.

Plan for about an hour and a half for a detailed look on your first try. That is the time Glamour suggests for its half-skull look unless you are already experienced. A simpler face with fewer details, such as basic sockets, a nose and a quick row of teeth, takes less time. If the party matters to you, do one practice run a few days before; you will be much faster the second time, and you can use that run to test your paint on your skin too.

When your face is done, the rest of the house may want to join in. Our guides to skeletons and Halloween and posing Halloween skeletons take care of the decorations.

These are the questions beginners ask most about skeleton makeup.

With a little practice, a white base, deep sockets and a careful row of teeth will turn your face into a skull that reads from across the room. If you would rather paint a Día de Muertos look, our Catrina makeup story covers that tradition. For more about the bones you are painting, read human skull facts, and for the rest of the night's decorations, see skeletons and Halloween.