Mermaid Hair and Make-Up

We wanted to do a mermaid inspired look, but more cute/avant garde than full on Halloween style mermaid.

With a bottle of hair dye, and some simple make-up and face paint, we made a mermaid look that can be worn any day of the year.

The first thing we did was find a beautiful mermaid colored hair dye. To be honest, any color would work, but a cartoon-like, soft, ocean inspired color, like Aqua Blue by Splat, works nicely.

The carton came with a bleaching kit, but we didn't use it as my model is blond to begin with. Even if you have blond hair, you can bleach it first to get a more vibrant color. Bleach can be painfully harsh though, so do an allergy test before covering your head in it. Put a small bit on your arm and wait to see if a rash appears. It is MUCH easier to remove the bleach mixture from your arm, than from your head, if it starts to burn. I learned this the hard way. I've lightened my hair several times before, so I added bleach without doing an allergy test. It hurts, and leaves you with a wonderful rash.

Cover the skin around the hair line, and anywhere the hair might fall while dying, with petroleum jelly. It's messy, but worth it, so you don't dye the skin. You also NEED to wear gloves, or your hands will turn blue. We put the blue dye all over dry hair, and let it sit for 45 minutes; 30 is the minimum, 60 should be the max, but you can leave it on for an extra 30 if your hair is dark, thick, or you want the color to be darker.

Rinse it out using only water.

***The bathtub looked like a smurf slaughter house afterwards. I found the Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner works the best to remove the dye. Magic erasers work great too if you get a drip on the floor or counter, just don't let it sit too long or it will stain.***

We didn't want the make-up to be too crazy. More cute/avant garde than Halloween costume.

First we applied some concealer, just a bit lighter than her skin tone, to act as a highlight, under the eyes, on the jaw bone, and just above the outer corner of the brow.

Then we applied dark blue eye shadow on the eye lid, and shimmer gold eye shadow under her eye, and on her cheek bone.

Next we use a lighter blue face paint to dab "scales" over the blue eye shadow and slightly above the corner of the brow. We used orange face paint to create the shape of a star fish on her cheek/cheek bone.

To add detail, we used a very thin brush and outlined the starfish, drew a thin line from just past the inner corner of the eye to just past the outer corner. Both with black face paint. Liquid liner would work too. We then added white dots to the starfish, over the eyelid, the cheek bone and trailing up towards the hair line.

To pull the entire look together, we added black mascara, pink lipstick with gloss, and darkened the eyebrow with a brow pencil.

Voila! A pretty little mermaid ready for a night on the town... Or to the bathroom to take selfies for Instagram then watch some Glee on Netflix.