So you want to be a clown? This is a heavily edited version of a much more comprehensive document created by Sniickerslee, a burlesque performer and clown popular on social media. This version has just the basics of the Sniickerslee version (mostly the types of makeup, the product links, and leaving out some advanced stuff like dental prosthetics and special effects makeup) as well as some other helpful tips and information that I’ve added and some changes to the organization.
The big three are whiteface, auguste, and tramp/hobo/character. Other clown-like characters who wear similar makeup are mimes, rodeo clowns, jesters, scare actors dressed as clowns, drag/burlesque clowns and clowncore people. You can find a description of the big three here, and some of the others here.
Once you figure out what type of clown you want to be, you want to draw it on your face. But before you do that, think about why clowns wear white makeup with drawn-on features. It goes all the way back to ancient Greek theater where comic performers wore white masks and tragic performers wore black masks. This evolved to white face paint for comic performers. On a side note, white face paint was made using lead all the way up until the early 1900s and many early clowns died of lead poisoning.
The look you think of when you think of clowns, though, largely comes from Joseph Grimaldi, an English actor and comedian from the early 1800s. He painted his face white with exaggerated black eyebrows and red lips and cheeks. It is said that Grimaldi added a secret ingredient to his lead-based white paint that neutralized the effects of the lead, letting him live to the ripe old age of 58. He is often called the first “traditional” clown.
Another reason performers wore white face paint (and not just clowns) was to make facial features more visible from a distance; lighten the skin, darken the eyebrows and movement lines on the face, and your facial expressions become more visible to those in the back row. This is important to remember when designing your face. Your clown makeup should ENHANCE your facial features and movement, not cover them up. Less is more!
One good tip when you’re first starting out is to look in the mirror and start making faces. Make funny faces, sad faces, surprised faces, etc. Make a note of where your face moves and where it doesn’t. Take something like an eyebrow pencil or a makeup pencil and start drawing lines on those places that move a lot. Wipe it off, then do it again. After a few rounds of that, you’ll be pretty close to having the perfect clown face.
A common thing that clowns do is move their eyebrows up. This makes your eyes look bigger and comical. This is usually done by covering your existing eyebrows with white paint (and glueing them down if needed) and drawing new eyebrows above your real eyebrows. Don’t draw them too high above though, because the muscles that move your eyebrows up and down only go about half way up your forehead. With every clown “rule,” there is of course an exception. Both Bozo the Clown and Lou Jacobs, the most famous Ringling Brothers clown, painted their eyebrows half way up their bald cap and they didn’t move at all!
Another similar idea is with your lips. The clown rule is don’t put makeup on your top lip. Your top lip doesn’t have a lot of movement, it’s attached to your skull. Your bottom lip, on the other hand, is on your jaw bone and can show a lot of movement. From a distance, if you paint both lips, especially if you use red and make them larger than your normal lips, your whole mouth area ends up looking like a big gross blob, (Again, Bozo did the big red blob thing to both lips and Jacobs did a little bit of the top lip but in black.)
This is the gold standard. They are relatively easy to find and inexpensive. They can be found in single color tubs or small palettes. Grease paint does not dry and requires powder to set it. It's more sweat-proof than cream and if set properly, it can last all day.
Don’t use these. This is your basic Halloween store makeup and can be found online, at most costume shops, and in season Halloween sections/stores. Cream will flake as it dries. It's rarely water/sweat proof and transfers onto everything very easily. It is very hard to layer powder eyeshadow/contouring details on top as the blending will cause the paint to come up.
Don’t use these either. You have to use water to activate them. You can get them in singles or pallets. You can add more water for a more translucent paint, add less for a more dense and pigmented look. The downfall is that because it's water activated, sweat, rain, and other liquids can cause it to run. It can also look a little patchy.
Similar to water-activated but requires a solution of 99% alcohol to activate. These paints are expensive and used more so in the world of SFX and by professionals on movie sets. Because the alcohol is needed to activate the paint it does not run, smear, or transfer if you come into contact with sweat or rain. To remove, you have to use 99% alcohol as well, makeup remover or water will not work. Do NOT use it in the eye area!
This is the everyday makeup women often wear on their face that is skin-colored. For clowns, however, you can find it in white! It is recommended for people with very sensitive, or acne prone skin. You use it like grease paint, apply and set with powder, but it’s not as heavy as grease paint. It allows your skin to breathe as it would with regular makeup. It won't clog your pores like grease paint can, and it's blendable with other powder cosmetics like contour and eyeshadows.
Powder is the critical element that separates professionals from amatuers. Without powder, your makeup will look greasy and will rub off on anything it touches. In ye olden days, clowns used baby powder filled in a tube sock to powder their faces. Baby powder back then contained talc, which was absorbed by the makeup allowing it to dry on your face. Nowadays, talc is believe to cause cancer and it is no longer used in baby powder. Instead, they use corn starch. Corn starch is no good because it's organic and can grow funky bacteria and end up caking and flaking. So don't use baby powder, instead use setting powder made for the makeup you are using. And don't put it in a sock, because that wastes powder and it's more expensive than baby powder. Use a powder puff instead.
There are three general types of noses based on how they are attached; held on with an elastic string, glued on, and held on with a septum clip. There are hundreds of shapes and sizes available, which is mostly a personal preference. Some tips for noses in general:
