Starting off with a lighter skin tone can make gothic make-up application truly simple. If you are fair-skinned, chose a foundation that is only one shade lighter than your skin tone. If you are medium or dark, the best to choose is two shades lighter than your natural skin tone.
Many times I have mixed my regular foundation in with the lighter one for a more realistic tone color for my skin.
1. Use your foundation brush and dip it in the foundation and cover your face and neck. If you are wearing a low-cut blouse, come down as far as you possibly can to avoid looking like you have two separate skin tone colors.
2. Cover your face with loose power. I use a Kabuki Brush and I have no regrets over what it cost me. It works wonders and truly covers the face evenly.
3. Use liquid eyeliner. I use black because my eyes are dark but gray or brown will work well if your eyes are lighter. I have sometimes even used a midnight blue for a different look.
4. Pick an eyeshadow. I like using dark browns and grays for a smoky look.
5. Pick you lipstick. Many Goth girls use black but I stay away from it. I prefer dark, deep red and purples.
Good luck with your make-up and feel free to send any make-up tips and tidbits on what is hot in the Goth community. Send to talesoferotichorror@rocketmail.com
Tips for the Bleak
From,
Ghastly Magazine
If this is done badly Gothic makeup and dress can look really stupid. The following below are some helpful tips.
1. Whiteface should create the illusion that you really are that pale, and not that you have a bunch of white waiting for the finishing touch of a clown. Use a good base: not even the most gifted makeup artist can get the necessary coverage from inferior makeup. If you have dark skin, don't try to do whiteface unless you're going for a very stylized harlequin look or are willing to put makeup on all exposed skin areas. Try using a base just one or two shades lighter than your own color, and then put white powder over it. This will give you an ethereal, almost grayish cast.
After spending money on a decent base, take the trouble to apply it evenly. It's appalling how many Goths overlook something so basic and vital to their entire aesthetic. Equally bad and unfortunately as common is the tendency to overpowder and to end one's pallor at the jawbone. Such mistakes are just inexcusably stupid. Don't make them.
2. On the subject of eyeliner, liquid is better, but if your hands shake, by all means use the most expensive pencil you can afford. Cheap pencils go on faint and will smudge after an hour. Do something original with your eye makeup: cobwebs or bat wings drawn across the cheek look silly on anyone over the age of fifteen. On those under fifteen, however, such adornments are sure to attract the lecherous attention of jaded Goths in their late twenties and early thirties who will probably give you free speed if you prove sufficiently pliable.
3. Find a shade of lipstick not everyone else is wearing. Theatrical supply stores are the best for really deep shades of congealed-blood red. Apply it with a lip brush for a more precise and severe effect.
4. Strive for originality in your costume. For those doing vintage looks, realize that both the eighteenth century and the Victorian era have been done to death. The Twenties, Thirties, and Forties are largely untapped by Goths and have great potential. One could dress as an emaciated, opium-addicted flapper from the Aleister Crowley set or pose as the Black Dahlia, a would-be actress from the Forties whose gimmick was that she dyed her hair black and would wear only black clothing; her ghastly mutilation and murder remain unsolved to this day. Also remember that black is not the only color. Deep blues, grays, and greens, as well as blood-red, purple, and ivory, can be equally striking.
5. If you have scars on your wrists from suicide attempts, by all means display them proudly. The same goes for bruises, cuts, and track marks. Abscesses, however, should always be coyly veiled in filmy black fabric.
Your Gothic look should be as opulent, decadent, and original as possible. If you're not up to making the necessary effort to carry off this most high-maintenance of affectations, try wearing plaid shirts and listening to Nirvana instead.
Gothic fashion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress.Typical Gothic fashion includes black dyed hair and black clothes. Both male and female goths wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernails. Styles are often borrowed from the Elizabethans and Victorians. BDSM imagery and paraphernalia are also common. Some haute couture designers, particularly Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, have been associated with the goth aesthetic.
Basic Goth outfit and makeup, though drawing on various aspects of the subculture; spikes and white makeup are commonly attributed to the style.
Characteristics
Cintra Wilson declares that "The origins of contemporary goth style are found in the Victorian cult of mourning." Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.
Many goths are drawn to the fashion due to a sense of alienation, which may explain the style's fascination with morbidity or vampire style. Wearing black eyeshadow and shroud-like clothing that refers to the dead may express grief, despair, or mourning. Some goth experience fashion as a transformation from alienation through self-expression and a sense of belonging to a community that shares the same sense of alienation. Alternately, the fashion may reflect an attraction to the darker side of sexuality.
Goth fashion can be recognized by its stark black clothing (or hair or makeup), often contrasted with boldly colored clothing, hair and makeup in shades of deep reds, purples, blues or emerald green. Fabrics and styles that evoke romantic eras as well as morbidity, and usually combine style elements that flow and drape, or restrict and emphasize a body part (i.e. corsetry or tight sleeves or trousers). Goth fashion further emphasizes the personal power of an individual, as the juxtapositions of elements of rugged accessories (metal and leather), to that of the vulnerable and sensual restriction of body parts (i.e. lace, silks, and high heels for either gender).
Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a
“ profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes.[4] ”
Researcher Maxim W. Furek noted,
“ Goth is a revolt against the slick fashions of the 1970’s disco era and a protest against the colorful pastels and extravagance of the 1980’s. Black hair, dark clothing and pale complexions provide the basic look of the Goth Dresser. One can paradoxically argue that the Goth look is one of deliberate overstatement as just a casual look at the heavy emphasis on dark flowing capes, ruffled cuffs, pale makeup and dyed hair demonstrate a modern- day version of late Victorian excess. ”
Goth fashion is sometimes confused with heavy metal fashion, and uninformed outsiders often mistake heavy metal fans or musicians for goth, particularly those who wear black trenchcoats or "corpse paint" (associated with black metal).
Role models
One female role model is Theda Bara, the 1910s femme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow. Musidora, Morticia Addams, Nico, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Robert Smith, and Siouxsie Sioux are also style icons.
Theda Bara's look in 1910 has inspired some types of Goth fashion.
Musidora as Irma Vep in a screen shot of the 1915 film serial Les Vampires
