Halloween Fun: Face Painting With Snazaroo

It’s Halloween!

Well, nearly. And though it wasn’t such a big deal when I was growing up, the whole spooky fancy dress thing has become really popular. My two love to dress up so Halloween is as much fun as Christmas for them and this year will be no different; they have no less than five Halloween parties to go to between them.

Now, with my serious hat on, I’m sure I’m not the only parent who is concerned about the safety of Halloween costumes this year. Ever since Claudia Winkleman’s daughter was in the news after suffering third degree burns from stepping too close to a carved pumpkin lit by a fairy light I haven’t been able to stop worrying about what our costumes are made of. It’s appalling that fancy dress outfits aren’t subjected to the same rigorous standards that our clothes are and yet on occasions like Halloween and Christmas our children wear them so close to naked flames.

It might be a bit of an overreaction but for me, anything that can minimise the risk of an accident is right up my street. Safe cars, safe homes, safe costumes: I’m all in. Which is why this year I’ve decided to make Halloween no less fun for my kids but I will be focussing our dressing up fun on Face Painting.

Now I’m a bit of a novice at literally anything crafty. When it comes to creating magic with paints and sticky things I generally leave that to school and make sure our crafts revolve around simpler tasks, like colouring in. So I was a bit wary of the kind of things I’d end up painting on my kids’ faces. I thought I might have to just stick a bit of white up there, say they were a ghost and call it a day.

To minimise the possibility of disappointing my kids on Halloween I was sent a bumper pack of Halloween face paints from Snazaroo to practice with. And guys, I’m not being funny here, but I surprised myself at either a) how easy it was to use the products or b) how talented at face painting I am.

I fully expect option a) to be true here.

The first request from Hux was to be a pumpkin – cool. I can handle that. And handle it I did (cute top knot not part of the face painting, just to minimise mess). I was pretty impressed with this, though potentially the mouth could do with some work?

Elfie wanted to be a zombie so I suggested a less difficult Frankenstein to begin with, which she happily agreed to. We went out to Pizza Express with faces like this and seemed to suitably scare many other diners… I think that means this was a success.

The next day was Heroes day for Hux at pre-school, so again rather than worry about pulling together a big outfit for him I decided to go with his favourite superhero, Spiderman, painted on his face. I got MEGA mum points at the school gate for the effort put into that one though obviously as I seem to be a face painting perfectionist we were five minutes late.

We’ve all really enjoyed taking a different approach to our fancy dress. The children love the fact they look completely different. I love the fact I know they are that little bit safer. We get to be really creative with all the different design possibilities – everyone’s a winner!

My favourite products to work with (get me, Ms Halloween Face Painting Professional) were the green and orange Face Paints and this Halloween Face Paint Kit; I’m really excited to give the gel blood a go when it gets nearer the spooky time, too!

FYI: Snazaroo face paints are all water-based, paraben and fragrance-free and formulated to be safe to young people’s skin. They came off in the bath incredibly easily.

Thank you to Snazaroo for sending us a fantastic selection of Face Paints to trial!