Doing up your face is as important as dressing up to complete ‘the look’ when you appear at the party in your fancy dress costume. Instead of going for the harsh colours and unpleasant chemicals, you can concoct your own fancy dress make-up with the things that you are sure to have your larder and closet.

Your make-up should fit with your fancy dress costume. What make-up is appropriate is dependent on the character, on the precise details of the costume and how you personally want to interpret the whole thing. For example, there are divergent ways of ‘being Dracula’ and make-up can reflect this.

Here are a few special tips for making your own fancy dress make-up:

• Face: Mix half a teaspoon each of water and cold cream to one teaspoon of corn starch. Add one or two drops of food color as desired, and mix well to form a uniform paste- and just brush it on evenly. If it is a deathly pale look you are thinking of, all you need to do is apply some cold cream liberally on to your face, and dust on talcum powder.

• Hair: If you are planning to appear at the costume party in grey hair, you don’t need to don a heavy wig. You can apply hair gel and just streak the areas where you need grey hair, with talcum powder or white face powder. And voila! You are done.

• Bloody mess: This is some yummy ‘yucky’ make-up! Just stir in a few drops of red food color in to a bowl of chocolate syrup, and the vamp in- you will crave for more of this lovely blood!

With this handy stuff, you can easily whip up your own make-up for your fancy dress. If you are out of ideas for your fancy dress costumes and accessories, look no further than Abfab.