Halloween Makeup How-To: Cleopatra

Halloween is fast approaching and for beauty junkies like myself, there’s no Halloween makeup look more appropriate than that of the original queen of makeup, the female pharoah famed for bringing kohl eyeliner into vogue: Cleopatra.

The inimitable Elizabeth Taylor embodied the Egyptian queen’s spirit in the epic 1963 film Cleopatra with a bold makeup look that was both regal and exotic. Here’s how to copy this classic, daring look at home so you can steal the show and stand out in a sea of costume-in-a-bag Marilyn Monroes at your Halloween party this year:

1. Prep your skin with foundation and powder. A little glimmer won’t hurt with this look if you have products with some shimmer to them, but don’t go overboard — with eyes this heavy, too-shiny skin will make you look a little too dirty and not remotely noble.
2. Be liberal with bronzer (an appropriately exotic choice: Global Goddess’ Goddess Glow South Pacific Shimmer) — looking regal is all about the cheekbones! Dab bronzer at the base of your cheekbones and blend forward.
3. Pluck & shape your brows into a high arch so that the pique falls directly above the middle of your upper eyelid.  Fill in with a dark pencil, emphasizing the stretch closest to your nose. Draw the back bend of the eyebrow in a thin, straight line at a 45-degree angle from your forehead. (Need help? Reference that picture on the right.)
4. Now the fun bit: apply blue eyeshadow from lash line to brow, making sure to hit the space beside your nose on each side. Violet, turquoise — any blue’ll do, as long as Christian Siriano would call it fierce.
5. Dab a teeny bit of sparkly cream-colored highlighter in your inner corners, but make sure to stay above the lower lash line.
6. Oh yes, it’s liquid liner time. Pull the top lid taut and apply in a thin line from the inner corner outward, thickening to about 1/8″ width at the middle of the lid. Line all the way across the bottom lid in a thin line, then as you reach the outer corner simply continue the line upward to meet the outer edge of your brow.
7. Begin a new line connecting with your existing liner at the outer edge of your bottom lid, tracing along the bottom edge of the line you just drew up to your brow. Curve the last 1/4″ of the line down, then connect the two bottom lines with a sharp swoop of liner coming down from the end of your brow.
8. Finish with black mascara and a nude lipstick (my current go-to for nude lips: MAC Lipstick Lustre in Close to Real). Braid in some beads and go walk like an Egyptian!