Guide Review - Snazaroo Special Effects Face Paint Kit

The Snazaroo special effects face paint kit would be perfect for painting gruesome Halloween faces as it comes with sculpting wax and fake blood. (In fact, two types of fake blood -- one in a cake form, like the other face paint colors, and the other a gel.) Of course, you don't have to use it for face painting designs involving blood; with green, black, and white paint you've the ideal colors for an ill-looking witch or monster!

Description
•Box contains three face paint colors (black, green, white), sculpting wax, cake blood and gel blood.
•There's also a spatula for applying and modeling the wax, a make-up brush, and two make-up sponges.
•Kit includes a printed page with step-by-step instructions for painting a cut finger, cut wrist, and a bullet hole.
•The paints are compliant with FDA & EU toy/cosmetic regulations. For details, see the

Snazaroo is a brand of face paints that's got a reputation for quality. Their paints are "fully compliant with EU and FDA toy and cosmetic regulations", something worth remembering when you're comparing prices of face paints. The paints aren't the cheapest on the market, but I'd personally rather pay for quality if I'm putting it on my face.

The Special FX Kit isn't made just for Halloween, but that's the time of year that you've got an excuse to go over the top with your face paint. The sculpting wax in the kit makes it possible to create lumps and bumps (I mean scars and wounds) on your skin easily. The wax sticks straight onto your skin, you don't need glue of any kind. (Tip: Run a wet sponge along the edges to make them less visible.)

The kit box says the contents will create 50 effects. I've not painted that many faces yet, but no doubt it will depend on whether you're painting large adult faces or small children's faces, and how many special effects you create on a face.

I had wondered whether the wax would smell like furniture wax, but it's hardly got any smell at all. It's soft, the color of bee's wax, and easily to manipulate, either with the tiny plastic spatula or your fingers. (I found fingers easier, with the spatula useful for creating grooves in the wax.)

The leaflet in the kit is disappointing -- it's just one page. (In Snazaroo's Rainbow Face Painting Kit there's a leaflet of sample designs.) It explains in four steps how to make a scar on your wrist (as if your hand had been chopped off and sewn back on), and how to create a bullet hole and cut finger. But I suppose we've all seen enough medical dramas to be able to create gruesome effects with fake blood.

If you're wanting face paints for an occasion other than Halloween, this isn't the kit to select. But for creepy faces, it's ideal.