A week or so before I was about to venture to the Zombie Pub Crawl in downtown Minneapolis I decided it would be a good idea to look up different makeup techniques. I was Googling images of zombies and asking what people used to apply their makeup. I found that most mentioned something about using liquid latex. What is this liquid latex stuff…and how does one use it?

Liquid latex is basically rubber that is packed in a liquid form that when I applied to any surface, dries in a matter of a few minutes. It gives the illusion of a second skin because of the way it dries to the contour of whatever it is applied to. Liquid latex itself is unique since it is a natural polymer derived from tree sap. Natural polymers use water as their base solvent. It is one of the few rubber compounds that is non-toxic in both a liquid and solid state (hence being applied to my face). The only downside to the stuff would be the smell before it dries, it smells similar to ammonia. Once the latex dries though, the smell is completely gone.

In order to achieve the desired look of rotting flesh (zombie look), I had to use layers of liquid latex and toilet paper. I think by the time I was finished I had four layers combining liquid latex and toilet paper. After all of that dries (make sure not to get it in your hair, ouch) I took a tweezers and pulled or rather ripped little holes in it to make it look like my skin was falling off or rotting in spots. It was quite funny to watch as I pulled at my face because the combo of Liquid Latex and toilet paper looks so much like skin and adheres snugly to ones skin. So, once I had the holes, I put makeup or face paint over the whole thing. I used greens, browns and greys for the top layer and then where the holes are I filled those with black, purple and red makeup. This gave the illusion of dried blood where my fake flesh had been ripped apart. I know this is a little morbid but, it was awesome to do! I spent about two and a half hours on my make up and then finished it off with a little fake blood (just a bit).

All of this was just for the Zombie Pub Crawl and I will say putting the makeup on was the best part. Anyways, as far as Halloween goes, I decided to dress as Betelgeuse. This was mostly because I wanted to do gross make up AGAIN involving liquid latex. Betelgeuse was a lot easier to accomplish than the zombie appearance. All I had to do this time was apply two layers of liquid latex and toilet paper. Then once the substance was dry I just ripped at it a little bit with a tweezers because there was no blood involved with this costume. I painted over the latex and my face with green, white and yellowish paint. This made for the appearance of rotting flesh around my hair line and the rest of my face had the look of sunken eyes and chalky skin. I did get a little to close to the hair line with the liquid latex because it hurt big time taking it off later that night.

After all was said and done, October has vanished once again but, I was left with some amazing memories and skills that I would like to apply to perhaps…November, December and every month after that. I think every month deserves a zombie or some other rotting undead creature. :)

That is all for now.

Hey!  Congratulations to Doug Snyder from Soulo Communications who won a Kindle 2 wireless reading device from ipHouse.  Doug was smart enough to stop by our booth and drop his card into our fishbowl, now he has a Kindle.  (And a mention on the ipHouse bog, what more could you want?)

It was great meeting ipHouse customers (“I’ve been with you guys since…”), and potential new customers (“I’ve heard of you guys, do you do…?”).  We plan on participating in more of these events in the future.  Check out the blog and we’ll let you know where we’ll be.  And were open to suggestions, so let us know of any events that we might not know about.

See you on the road.

-Andy