15 Easy Halloween-Inspired Makeup Looks For 2022
Scrolling through Instagram and TikTok during this time of year can be a little intimidating. You're seeing the best of the best in the makeup world showing off their top-notch Halloween-inspired artistry, and most of these looks appear as if they should be winning next year's Academy Award for best makeup in the latest horror or sci-fi film. Sometimes it seems like the level of talent is so high that it seems there's no way the average beauty lover could replicate these special effects.
We can't deny that spooky season is here. Case in point? The iconic skeleton statement earrings that Kate Hudson rocked on Martha Stewart's HGTV talk show in 2020 are officially back in stock (via BaubleBar). But deciding on which makeup look(s) you'll be donning this season shouldn't be as frightful as the haunted house attractions you have planned. We're here to remind you that Halloween makeup is all about having fun and experimenting, and as cliché as that may sound, it holds a powerful truth. All of those famous social media makeup stars started somewhere, and it was their courage to put themselves out there and keep practicing that got them to where they are now.
Whether you're a makeup newbie looking to learn some new skills this Halloween, or you're just looking for an easy idea for that party you were invited to, we've got you covered with some great looks that people of any skill level can achieve with the right products.
Spooky cute ghosts
What is Halloween without sheeted ghosts? According to Kqed, the history of how the famous image of a ghost as a bedsheet rose to fame is a tad grimmer than the sweet little ghost depictions we see today. Up until the 1800s, the deceased were typically wrapped up in burial shrouds — with poorer folk simply being wrapped up in the bedsheet from their deathbed. Not exactly the happiest image, but it does make the sheeted ghost concept a bit spookier.
In order to recreate this more cheerful and oh-so-adorable ghost look imagined and slayed by @makeupbytammicosmetics, begin by doing your foundation, concealer, contour, and eyebrow routine as usual. Then, grab the Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner in the shade "Snow" — we love this choice because instead of an applicator brush, it comes with a "marker-like tip" for better and easier precision. Begin drawing out the shapes of the ghosts; start with small ones near the corner of your mouth and gradually add more varying shapes and sizes up your face. Remember: have fun with these ghosts! This look isn't about perfection.
Once the white liner is dry, reach for your favorite black liquid liner to draw on the ghosts' eyes and mouths. Finally, take a black satin liquid lipstick — like LA Splash Lip Couture Liquid Lipstick in "Venom" — and apply it to the lips to complete your look.
Electric lightning
Makeup artist @clarafajardomua is giving us total Storm from "X-Men" vibes with this look. This makeup puts a fun, modern twist on Halle Berry's iconic character's electrifying eyes. Add a silver wig to ramp up the style.
To capture the look, go for dewy skin to really play up the wet, thunderstorm concept. Begin with Milk Cosmetic's Hydro Grip Hydrating Primer to create a luminous base, follow it up with the Wet n' Wild Photo Focus Dewy Foundation – we recommend it for the quality and price point — and finally, set the foundation with NYX Professional Dewy Finish Setting Spray. After adding your favorite blush and highlighter, you can begin working on the lighting strike.
Using a sky-blue eyeshadow, such as Clinique's All About Shadow in "Lagoon," start sketching out the shape of your lighting strike by lightly drawing a medium-thick wavy line with "branches” across your left cheek and extending it diagonally up to your right eye. Next, go over that line with a white liquid eyeliner to create the effect of the lightning's highlights — making sure to use a heavier hand in the center and a lighter hand for the branches of the bolt. Turn that same eyeshadow into eyeliner by simply adding some water to a thin brush and dipping it in the shadow. Once you've filled in your eyeliner wing, line your lower waterline with a white pencil eyeliner before completing the look with lashes and a colored contact in one eye.
Cherry pie
Summer 2022 saw a resurgence of Y2K fashion trends. Remember all of those cherry designs popular during the early 2000s? Cute little sets of cherries could be found on crop tops, cami's, earrings, and hair clips. In her Halloween-inspired look, makeup artist @rubygraham.mua totally nailed the cherry-loving essence seen at the dawn of the new millennium, and she added some bold bursts of vibrant eye color to top it off.
Graham said she used the Colourpop Cherry Crush Palette in order to really ramp up the cherry colors in the eyeshadow shades. After creating your custom cherry shadow look using the palette, add your favorite mink lashes for extra drama. For a unique touch, attach an individual lash cluster to the center of the lower lash line as Graham does in her look. For the best-looking cherries, your best bet is to draw them on using a detailing brush and an oil-based face paint set. CC Beauty's Body Paint Kit is a dream of a set that includes every color under the sun.
Admittedly, our favorite part of the look is the ever-endearing faux freckle trend that Graham rocks, and Freck OG can give you just that. Simply apply a small cluster of dots onto your cheeks, and then "copy and paste" them by using tapping motions to spread more across the face and mute the tone.
Sophisticated leopard
Bold fashion looks are all about being wild and overpowering, and what's more wild than a sexy feline? @Institutelili shares a look via Instagram that effortlessly schools us on what classic and sophisticated Halloween makeup looks like.
The best part about a leopard makeup look is that it involves products that you likely already have in your arsenal. All you'll need is an eyeshadow palette that includes shades of browns and grays, black liquid eyeliner, black and white pencil eyeliners, and your favorite nude lip combo. To create the leopard spots, simply draw varying shapes and sizes of brown "spots" in the areas of the face you'd like (don't worry about them being perfect since this look is all about being wild), then outline them with your black pencil eyeliner, making sure not to do so completely in order to leave some blank space.
Apply the nose by using a black liquid liner to draw an upside-down triangle. As far as the eyes go, be sure to add some white eyeliner to your water line — this will create the appearance of a cat eye. Don't forget to play around with plenty of drama and smokiness!
Red sugar skull
Sugar skulls are a meaningful part of Mexican culture, according to Mexican Sugar Skull. Every year, around the time America is enjoying Halloween, Mexico is celebrating Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. A vast number of Latinx makeup artists create their own versions of a sugar skull to represent their culture and honor their heritage every year, so it's only natural that 2022 has some creative sugar skull looks ahead. @Tinarus.makeup does exactly that, and she does so in a way that can be easily recreated.
For this look, it's best to begin with the eyes. Using black and gray eyeshadow, blend a dark smoky base, followed up by black liner and falsies. Using the CC Beauty Body Paint Kit, create two red circles around each eye, filling them in with color and being careful not to mess up your black eyeshadow. With the black paint in the set, create the nose, designs, and mouth. Finally, outline the red circles with red self-adhesive rhinestones to add a pop of glamour.
Crawling spiders
Somehow, even though we see spider makeup designs popping up on our social media feeds every year, they never really get old. This could be due to the fact that no matter how much time passes, people will always be afraid of spiders. In fact, according to a study published in Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 75% of the 118 participants surveyed noted having a fear of spiders. @Mollyrmakeup poignantly dabbles with that fear by presenting us with a creepy and crawly look involving not only one but two spiders.
We recommend attempting this design with liquid eyeliner as opposed to body paint — you're likely to get much more precision with a liner brush. To begin, you'll want to start by creating the body of the spider: Draw a large black circle and a smaller one on top of it for the head, then add eight legs to the body. Next, create highlights with red and white liquid eyeliners. Now, it's time to work the shadows of the spider in — the most important part for really nailing that 3D effect. This can be done using black eyeshadow, but be sure not to go in too heavy-handed.
This look might take a few rounds of practice with the shading and highlighting to get right, but we promise the final result will be well worth it!
Dark skeleton
Another Halloween classic you can't ever go wrong with is skeleton makeup. In fact, our modern love of all things skeleton during Halloween isn't anything new. According to Time, man's fascination with bones dates all the way back to medieval times, and Halloween's history is deeply rooted in the ancient festival of Samhain — a night where it was believed that the lines between the land of the living and the land of the dead were wiped away, allowing ghosts and skeletons to come back to life and return to the land of the living.
@Rubygraham.mua brings us a classic skull look with a dark twist: instead of being all white, this design is painted in black and accented with a sultry red lip. Admittedly, the best way to nail this look is by simply studying Graham's design and following along with her line work as you go. A highly pigmented black eyeliner like Kat Von D's Super Pomade Vegan Eyeliner will be your best friend when it comes to drawing in the fine details of the face. Graham finishes her look with BYS Cosmetics Luxe Lips Matte Lipstick in the shade "Hypnotize."
Morticia Addams
For those of us who grew up loving "The Addams Family," it can seem like a pretty painful fact that we haven't seen a live-action rendition of this celebrated gothic family's trials and tribulations hit screens since 1998 (via IMDb). However, this is all changing with Tim Burton's new Netflix series called "Wednesday" set to premiere this fall (via IMDb).
To celebrate a new era of the beloved macabre family, why not pay homage to the Addams' matriarch Morticia (who will be played by Catherine Zeta-Jones)? Sophie Turner totally owned her Morticia Halloween costume in 2018 while alongside her husband Joe Jonas on Instagram, and we can't help but be inspired by it.
To recreate the classic Morticia look, @makeupbysahira shares exactly which products she used in her variation. She whitened her foundation by mixing it with the L.A. Girl Pro Coverage Liquid White Foundation – this is a really cool product because, yes, it's actually a pure white foundation and not face paint. This means that you won't get the thick, opaque coverage as you would with face paint, but instead a more sheer and white cast to the skin — exactly what you're looking for when recreating Morticia's makeup.
Euphoria eyes
Let's be honest here: When we watched HBO's "Euphoria" for the first time we were drawn to the ever-so-interesting makeup looks of characters like Maddy Perez (played by Alexa Demie) and Cassie Howard (played by Sydney Sweeney). We may have also found ourselves forming somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the iconic looks; on one hand, we may be thinking, "What high school would allow this?" while on the other hand, we're Googling where to buy press-on gems for our next eye makeup creation.
Whether you love it or hate it, there's no denying that "Euphoria" has forged a cultural revolution — and the makeup is here to prove it. "The thing that inspires me the most is when people take their own unique take on a makeup look from the show," "Euphoria" lead makeup artist Donni Davy shares with Glamour. "Maybe it's a Jules look, but a little more with a Maddy glam aspect to it. There's such an insane amount of talent on TikTok and Instagram, it blows my mind."
The fact that Davy has given us her blessing to add our own twists to her looks should be the ultimate signal that it's time to start planning our "Euphoria" Halloween looks, right? On this topic, Instagrammer @roses_cloud shares, "Thank you @euphoria and @donni.davy for making it acceptable to add crystals and call it Halloween makeup. Also, not so secretly planning on integrating crystals in my daily makeup looks."
Sexy phantom
In the legendary film "Mean Girls" — arguably the most quotable film of all time, according to Glamour UK — we all remember the infamous scene where, before walking into a Halloween party, Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) says: "In the real world, Halloween is when kids dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can dress up like a total s*** and no other girls can say anything else about it." There was something about that part of the movie that was stamped in the minds of an entire generation: You can either be sexy or scary on Halloween — never both.
Flaunting (and totally owning) a makeup look that merges both mystical and haunting with timeless and polished, makeup artist @fluturastudio has completely crushed any stereotypes that pop culture may have imprinted on us. The artist seamlessly blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, giving "Phantom of the Opera" vibes as she showcases both Christine and the phantom.
In order to truly instill this makeup artist's cutting-edge effect, opt for a red liquid gloss. This will add the extra drama required for the look as well as supply definition and volume to the lips for next-level sexiness. We love Pat McGrath's LUST Lip Gloss in the shade "Blood 2" because of its hydrating, vegan, and high-shine formula. It is the perfect classic blue-based red to complete a look that's to die for.
Cruella de Vil
This year's Academy Awards may have been overshadowed by Will Smith and Chris Rock drama (via Variety), but that doesn't take away from the extraordinary talent of the winners and nominees in other categories. The "Best Hair and Makeup" award is highly coveted and respected in the eyes of the cosmetic industry. Although the makeup team for "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" walked away with the winning statue, "Cruella" was a close runner-up (via ABC News).
After the movie, starring Emma Stone, premiered in 2021, Instagrammers and TikTokkers everywhere posted their own personal takes on Cruella de Vil's makeup. One of our favorite looks — which is both creative and easy to recreate — is this glorious adaptation from @rubygraham.mua. She makes Cruella easily recognizable with adornments of dalmatian spots on the eyes, alongside faux blood and diamonds upon her neck — which dare we say can be seen as highly symbolic of Cruella's nature.
To recreate Graham's brilliant eye makeup artistry, form a base with the MAC Studio Face and Body Foundation in the shade "White." Fully cover your eyelids with the product and extend this all the way up to the brows, following up with a white eyeshadow. Fill in a black winged liner on the upper lash line and an emerald green eyeshadow on the bottom. For dramatic lashes, Graham uses Bold Face Makeup's Blown Away Lashes, which offer a dynamic 3D synthetic hair design.
Pennywise the Clown
Stephen King's beyond-terrifying character Pennywise the Clown has been instilling fear into the hearts of youth (and likely adults, too) since the 1980s. Although it wasn't until 2017 that the killer clown made his thrilling cinematic comeback, according to IMDb, Pennywise had never really left the back of our minds since the original film's miniseries debut in 1990 (via IMDb).
A single character maintaining such a dominating role in the horror category for well over 30 years? This type of world-renowned fame never really goes out of style; it's simply timeless. As such, even though we haven't seen any new content from Pennywise on the big screen for several years, it's safe to say that you can never really go wrong using him as inspiration in your Halloween look — especially with a feminine twist like @styleofrebel shows us.
To nail the creepy clown makeup that this look focuses on, try using red eyeshadow as opposed to face paint. Eye shadow will allow you to blend and smoke out the edges of the bold lines down the face, which leaves much less room for error.
David Bowie
Brett Morgen's powerful David Bowie documentary "Moonage Daydream" hit the theaters in September 2022, and this is arguably the type of film that will surge a whole new generation of Bowie fans. The movie is raw, unapologetic, and oh-so-indescribably, well, Bowie. Featuring clips of various Bowie interviews overlaid on top of trippy graphics and concert scenes from Bowie's most iconic eras, moviegoers will leave the theater knowing exactly who the man and the artist was prior to his 2016 passing.
Makeup artist @lizettealvarezz commemorated the legendary singer, songwriter, actor, and artist by giving us a version of his iconic "Ziggy Stardust" makeup that embraces the messiness of art — something Bowie likely would have been quite proud of. By allowing the face paint to drip down her face in certain areas, Alvarez shows us a break from the typical Bowie lightning strike. We're left with something new, fresh, and unique with a bit of cartoon-like inspiration. It's a look that can be easily recreated using face paint, water, and eyeliner.
Bejeweled in red
Who says that Halloween makeup has to represent a certain character or look like something you'd never dream of wearing to the grocery store unless the date is October 31? Halloween makeup doesn't have to be exclusive to Halloween itself. You can drop head-turning looks the whole month of October.
Bright red lips are trending this season as much as ever before, according to NYC-based makeup artist Marco Campos. "I love that it's taking on a brighter, candied twist this fall and staying consistent with the bolder colors that are dominating the runways," Campos shares with The Zoe Report. Makeup artist @cxtrionalittle schools us on exactly what Campos is referring to by pairing a brighter-than-life classic red lip with a Julia Fox-inspired bold black eyeshadow wing (via Instagram). The finishing touch? Red crystals.
In order to get the best red lip possible, makeup artist Ehlie Luna shares her application secrets with Oprah Daily. "Bold lips have a way of accentuating the texture of the lips and tone around the mouth, which is why it's best to invest in a lip care routine to get the best results when applying," she says. "First, exfoliate the lips. If there's any discoloration around the mouth, color correct. Next, use a lip pencil to map out [the lips], as this will help with precision and longevity. Finish with lipstick of choice, using a lip brush if necessary. These tips help a lip look professionally applied."
Beetlejuice cartoon
In case you've been living under a rock, we're here to tell you that "Beetlejuice" has been on the lips and minds of many in 2022. Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Brad Pitt's production company was set to join early developments of a sequel to Tim Burton's 1988 classic film (via IMDb). Regrettably, things went pretty silent after the announcement — aside from rumors and fake movie posters circulating in regard to lead actors and release dates.
Whether or not we will ever see a sequel to Burton's zany dark comedy, we can still honor the original film by continuing to develop interesting and fun makeup adjustments on the forever recognizable characters. @Rubygraham.mua shares a version of "Beetlejuice" that's more of a cartoon-inspired look — which we absolutely love for its creativity. One of our favorite parts of this makeup is the glittery purple lips, and though Graham does not share what she used for the lips, the Ciaté London Glitter Flip Liquid Lipstick in the shade "Fortune" is a perfect choice for recreating the look. The deep purple lipstick formulated with transfer-proof glitter is vegan, long-wearing, and unlike anything we've seen before. It goes on as a matte and transforms to a glitter finish when you rub your lips together — talk about Halloween magic!