An Easy Halloween Costume That Still Let’s You Be Pretty: An Elizabeth Taylor How-To

Continuing our tradition of creating easy Halloween costume ideas with MAC Cosmetics (remember Nikki’s cool flapper costume and Julianne’s Catwoman costume?), the Glamour.com team headed back to the MAC Pro store this year for three new looks. I’ll start with the one MAC senior artist Neil Young created for me: Elizabeth Taylor.

First, Neil evened out my skin tone with a bit of foundation and added a subtle color to my cheeks to “get that gorgeous, peachy skin Liz was famous for.” Then he got to work on one of her key features: the eyebrows.

Step 1: Elizabeth Taylor’s Eyebrows

Liz’s brows were angular, not sweeping. To re-create it, Neil filled in my naturally straight brows from start to tail, with a brown pencil. Tip: For this costume, choose a cold brown with an almost black tinge to it. Neil started the exaggerated arch of the brow just outside the iris of my eye and then used a cotton swab to gently smudge out the start of the brow, so it didn’t look so severe.

Step 2: Elizabeth Taylor’s Eye Makeup

You can skip the gazillion-shade eyeshadow palette for this look. Neil dusted my eyelids with a bony, neutral shade. Anything without texture that will mattify the lid will work, he says. He then used a black pencil to replicate the bold cat-eye. “When the eye is open, look directly in the mirror and draw a little V-shape on the corner of the eye,” he advises, “and then with your brush, you can start to drag out the flick, but it’s easier to do when the eye is open. If you do struggle with that, it’s good to mascara your eyelashes first, and then you can create the tip of of the flick as if it’s the extension of another lash.” With the liner, remember to stop at the pupil for the wide-awake style Liz was known for.

Step 3: Elizabeth Taylor’s Eyelashes

For incredibly long, flirty eyelashes, Neil applied some major falsies. “The 36s or 12s from MAC are amazing because they get longer at the edges,” he says. To make them easier to apply, cut each strip in half and glue only on the outer edges of your lash lines. Then, of course, came some major coats of black mascara—to the top lashes only. And let me tell you, after spending the day wearing Elizabeth Taylor-esque eyelashes (the only part of the look I kept on after our shoot), I can totally understand why it was so popular. Seriously, everyone in the office commented on my fluttery lashes. Our editor-in-chief even stopped midsentence during a meeting to ask about them.

Step 4: Elizabeth Taylor’s Cheekbones

To give the illusion of even more angular features, Neil contoured my cheekbones with MAC Sculpting Powder, but you can also use a bronzer or neutral blush. Pro tip: Imagine an invisible line from the top of your ear to the corner of your mouth. “That’s exactly where everybody’s cheekbone structure naturally runs, so if you imagine the line there and contour along it from the top of the ear until you get to the pupil, you’ll always flatter your own face,” says Neil.

Step 5: Elizabeth Taylor’s Lips

For crazy, full lips, Neil lined mine with a deep red pencil. Try a burgundy-red one like Nightmoth to give the mouth depth and dimension. To give my lips a more old-Hollywood feel, Neil pushed the liner up a bit around the outer corners of my mouth to make my lips seem bigger and give them a more-defined heart shape. He applied Russian Red lipstick with a brush to complete the bold pout.

The Final Elizabeth Taylor Halloween Costume

I tossed on a red dress and stole I already owned, added some red costume jewels, and was ready to go. To make it all seem a little more this decade, I’m going to tell people that I’m actually Lindsay Lohan Playing Elizabeth Taylor.