How to Make Your Halloween Hellishly Good
Halloween is such an underrated holiday here in Australia, but bringing the ghoulishly good festivity down under might actually be one of the most fun events on our calendar!
Decorations
To really get you into the spooky mood, it’s best to start by making sure the environment you’re in just screams Halloween. There is a load of DIY crafts you can embark on, but there isn’t anything wrong with buying ready-made decorations either! The best part is that decorations are re-usable, and can simply be put away and saved for the next spooky season.
- The Main Attractions
When you’re going to celebrate Halloween, it’s go big or go home. If your street is prone to little kids wearing their best costumes, you bet that your house is going to have to look the part.
Any Halloween-themed hanging decorations are a good way to cover mass expanses of area in little time. You can find them in the form of hanging spider webs, caution ‘do not enter’ tape, or dangling props like ghosts. The best place to string these up are across door frames and windows, plus over any fencing too. Investing in Halloween lights can also brighten up your place at night, which is when most trick-or-treaters choose to roam.
Hanging decorations are probably the most effective outdoor decorations. They’re also safer compared to stand-alone decorations that can be easily stolen from yards.
- The Mini Spooks
It’s the little details that count as well. If you’re lucky enough to host a party, even if it’s just within your family bubble – it’s a great way to lift everyone’s when life in lockdown has become the norm. Plastic spiders and creepy crawlies are great to sprinkle around tables and other common surfaces. Anything like Halloween signs, pumpkin props and wall décor go amazing for interiors.
- The Iconic Pumpkin
Whether you live alone or have a whole family living under the roof, carving pumpkins is a must for Halloween.
The best part is that you not only get to display an amazing, hand-crafted slice of décor, but the innards of the pumpkin that get scooped out can be re-used. Find delicious recipes that hero pumpkins, and you’ve had your cake and eaten it too!
Fashion
So now that your home looks the part, Halloween is such a good excuse to whip out your coolest clothes. The main colours that get their time to shine are dark black, bright purple, pumpkin orange, and lime green. If you’re not wearing a curated costume, you can still use those four colours to curate outfits that go with a Halloween theme.
Black stockings, whether they’re solid or fishnet are a top hit if you want to wear a skirt over them. Otherwise, dark leather jeans or bright pants in any colour that isn’t black can be a real winner. If you don’t want to splash out big on full costumes, putting on a mask or witch’s hat will do the trick. It’s a little hard to visualise, so we’ve attached some inspo below.
Little bits of accessorising are also super important. Red and black nails are so in right now, and if you’re really well-versed with nail art, you can try white spider webs on a black base, or a jack-o-lantern face on an orange base.
Makeup
- The Basics
Okay, now for the fun part! Halloween is all about being big and bold. We’re talking smoky eyeshadow, a dark lip and some banging full-glam lashes. When Halloween’s main theme is dark, then we’ve got to crank it up full throttle.
Any good YouTube deep dive will have a tutorial on a bold, smoky eye look. We like to see cool tones, including the blacks, greys and browns to stay in tone with the holiday. A fierce wing is just asking to be drawn, then top it off with the boldest pair of falsies you have on hand. We love using our magnetic liner with our magnetic lashes, which makes the application and removal process ten times easier without glue.
- Day of the Dead
This might be your only excuse to have really bright and vibrant colours on the eyes. If you Google ‘Day of the Dead Makeup’ (a Halloween cult classic), you’ll get some pretty awesome inspiration for a signature Halloween look. It’s like a cross-over between a horror movie and super cute boho vibes. It keeps in tone with the bold, smoky looks alongside a confident winged liner and lashes, but with more pops of colour. See the pic below to see how you can recreate it with your own personal spin.
Food
With all that hard work into making your home, clothes and face look fab, you’ve probably worked up a mighty appetite.
- Trick or Treating
Your typical diet during Halloween can be varied. If you know your neighbourhood has little kids running around to collect candy as part of their annual trick or treating, invest in a variety of sweets. This includes fun-sized chocolates and individually wrapped candy, so that everyone gets a little mix when they come by. We say ‘individually wrapped’ because it’s way safer than naked lollies being touched by everyone in light of the pandemic.
- Other Tidbits
Remember how we said to reserve the pumpkin flesh from your pumpkin carving sesh? This is where it comes in. Pumpkin is a delicious vegetable that can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. Whether it’s roasted as a side, blended into a cake, condensed into soup or rolled into dough – we want you to get creative with your sustainable pumpkin saving!
The other treat that we love (and is super duper easy) are Halloween shortbreads. They take just three ingredients to make, with no fancy equipment needed. Its perfect as a solo project, or a fun activity to do with friends and family. There are so many places you can get cutters from too.
Hundreds of recipes exist online, and you don’t even have to just stop at baking. You can buy some writing icing, ready-to-roll icing or even Nutella from the supermarket to top these bad boys off. Halloween-themed sprinkles are also readily available for you to decorate at your heart’s content!
Halloween deserves more recognition for all the fun it invites us to play with when it rolls around each October. Our suggestions are just a few of many that can help make it one of the best holidays we can have, and we won’t be letting lockdown stop it from being any less of an awesome one.
