Will the festive facepaint last longer than Christmas itself?
The festive season is a time for family, fun and ... facepaint, says DAWN MILLWARD
CHRISTMAS: here today, gone tomorrow. Not the facepaint though.
The muddied tones of yellow, red and green remain with the odd speck of glitter – in situ, not in the facepaint box.
Christmas isn’t complete without a mega box of facepaint. Santa had the foresight to leave a box of it for Minnie.
Minnie adores facepaint. Any fete, fair, festive occasion will have a facepainting stall. A trip out is made complete with facepaint. Minnie will find the stall and watch and wait and be patient for her turn.
Minnie will stand in the queue, bouncing with anticipation of the forthcoming makeover. Facepaint heaven.
Butterflies, tigers, white with pink whiskers with a dab of glitter.
Dolly and Minnie had a run of using Sharpie permanent markers in place of facepaint. The traces of vibrant Sharpies would remain for days. Resistant to soap, make-up remover and Swarfega.
Orange eyebrows, Sharpie whiskers, I thought we had seen it all, as in, the resistance of either Sharpie or facepaint to removal.
We had a swift walk in heavy December weather. Mist, drizzle, damp and grey, low-level December light. It appeared to be a good idea prior to setting off, in the lull separating Christmas and New Year. But with cabin fever and late nights, tiredness had set in.
Ilam park was busy. The overflow car park was in use and the park had a festive abundance of visitors.
The mist, the drizzle, and crossing the final field en route back to the car park was one field too many. An uphill muddy trudge and a silent oath not to return to Ilam Park during the school holidays. At least we had made an effort.
Boots off, muddy clothes in the back of the car and home.
Minnie found her facepaint. Pete found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Not a whole bottle. The Christmas Elf on the Shelf had thrown a daily party every December evening, helping himself to liberal quantities of JD.
It was Pete’s turn for the facepaint. Bunny ears? A pirate? An alien maybe? Dolly and Minnie could not agree and played safe with just white, a little orange and a dab of yellow. Playing safe ended in 30 seconds.
Minnie quickly emptied the pots of pink and white, leaving behind the subtleties of yellow, green and red. The facepaint had a thick, heavy consistency. Think warm Vaseline, with pigment.
I did think this would, maybe, be difficult to remove. I did think, I did hope, the children’s skin would be safe. I needn’t have worried.
The facepaint by this time had been liberally applied to Pete. Meaning the children were safe from an adverse reaction to the face paint ingredients.
Safe on this one, a tick in the correct place. Minnie using a sponge to spread the alien (or was it a witch?) over the top of Pete’s head. The green ran out, so Pete’s ears were yellow, including inside of his ears. Odd how the hair no longer grows in abundance on the top of his head but, instead, out of his ears.
A mixture of orange and red stripes over the top of his head, two tubs of glittering “Vaseline” and the whole box of facepaint was empty.
And the bunny ears? The ears would not stay in place amid the multiple layers of paint. The blue and silver glitter adorning eyebrows, beard and neck hair. And ear hair. Dolly and Minnie did laugh. The back of Pete’s neck had a comment, Dolly read the first few letters, starting with up. Nothing springs to mind.
Objective. Facepaint removal. Time? A few minutes. Difficulty? Zero. Methodology? Aldi shower wash. Post-shower, Pete had a substantial greenish tinge, yellow ears and had found an alternate version of Just For Men hair dye. His eyebrows were black, beard darker, after the glitter spread further with the washing. A few minutes and several applications of shower gel and the difficulty increased from zero to needing make-up remover. Not to worry, I said to Pete, make-up remover will be the knight in shining armour. Pete was the only one shining at this point – from two sources: from the glitter and from the removal of a layer of skin!
So to plan B: Baby wipes were surely the answer and suitable for sensitive skin. A minimal effort for maximum removal. But the facepaint layer outdid the supply of baby wipes.
Time for plan C: surely good old-fashioned make-up removal lotion would not be beaten by facepaint?
Three days later, Pete looks artificially healthy. Apart from the intermittent reflection of light from glitter, and yellow ears and his greying eye brows having a darker hue, all is well.
A happy, healthy new year to all.
Surely good oldfashioned make-up removal lotion would not be beaten by facepaint? Dawn Millward