Think twice before settling for the cheap face paint that crowds discount aisles at stores that offer drugs, food and one-hour photos with its Halloween stock. A poor face-painting job can transform a fun costume into a monster faster than in An American Werewolf in Paris.
Greg Labold of the Kensington-based Labold Brothers Original Art Company knows the horror stories well.
He attended a shoddy face painting class, slept with the paint on and awoke to an itchy, crusty monster melding on his face. Just like house parties on Halloween, leave someone huddled by a toilet or sucking on a water tube in a hospital, Labold knew the incident would likely happen again.
Labold learned from his mistakes after joining the Philadelphia Zoo as a professional face-painter.
He said the best paint material is water-based paint available at Pearl Art and Craft, Dick Blick Art Materials and Artist & Craftsman.
He suggests using a brush made of synthetic hair instead of horse hair to avoid allergic reactions. Labold also said sponges and cotton swabs help to flesh out life-like detail for costumes.
“For a scary face like a monster or to look like you have lots of scars, those are all easy things to sort of pull off with a limited amount of paint,” he said. “It’s very easy to make cuts and bruises or a mustache, unibrow or beard. Any kind of cat, like a tiger or lion, are really successful and exciting faces.”
Jimmy Viola can be reached at jimmy.viola@temple.edu.
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