If you couldn’t tell by now, I really love Halloween. And I REALLY love dressing up. This is my sixth year teaming up with people to do a group costume, and for 2018 we chose to do Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lucky me got to be Alice!

This post will cover the details on my outfit, makeup and hair in case you’re looking to replicate the look for another year. If you’d like to see pictures of our entire group, please see yesterday’s post.

I was styling myself after the 1951 Disney animated movie “Alice in Wonderland”, which meant that my outfit was rather simplistic. However, finding a dress that was simple turned out to be rather more of a chore. Almost every Alice costume is now a “sexy” version which is really just… gross. She’s supposed to be a ten year old girl! Anyway, I ended up finding this one on Ebay from an American seller for $22.99 USD (it was identical to one that was shipped from China that I wanted, but I’d left it too late and there’s no way an item from China would’ve reached me in time for Halloween). I had it shipped to my friend Dorothy in New York so I could pick it up from her when I was on vacation this past month. Thankfully, the dress arrived while I was in New York! One thing though… I ordered a large and it didn’t come anywhere close to fitting around my back and there is zero give in the material. It could close around my neck just fine and up to my natural waist, but I’ve got a decent chest and a broad back and this left me with a 2 inch gap at the back. Thankfully, the apron straps covered most of the gap, but yeah, this dress definitely did not close up on me in the back! The outfit also came with the headband and bow, so I was completely set for my main part of the costume.

The biggest problem I had with this entire outfit was hunting down a pair of opaque white tights. My last resort was going to be buying dance tights, but that shop was a bit further out of my way than I wanted to go, so I was constantly checking any and all retailers around me. Eventually, after going into 20 different stores (not joking), I found a pair of white tights at a Legs Beautiful in THE PATH in downtown Toronto. I was ecstatic! While the tights weren’t necessarily vital to the outfit, they really did help add to the character.

I had some black ballet flats I used to wear to work that fit quite well for the look, although I didn’t get around to doing the little strap she has over the  top of the foot. I also picked up a small petticoat ($30) from Malabar to help fluff up the edges of my skirt and make it stick out more. I didn’t think it would be that important, but it ended up adding a lot of volume to the skirt which I really liked.

My makeup was fairly simplistic and youthful, which can actually be kind of tough when you’re used to packing on fun colours and product!

For my eyes, I used the Kat Von D Shade + Light eye palette – this one has become a staple for doing “character” makeup because most characters you see in movies or on TV don’t tend to look like they’ve got a ton of makeup on. They only wear products that enhance their features without going overboard. I stuck to the neutral quad in the middle and put the bone shade all over my lid and used the two greys to deepen up my crease. I applied ARTDECO’s liquid liner to my lash line and didn’t wing it out – I just wanted my eyes and lashes to appear larger. I popped on Covergirl’s Clump Crusher mascara to my top and bottom lashes and then put on a pair of House of Lashes Au Naturale falsies. If this sounds familiar, it’s because I did the exact same look for the eyes for my Captain Marvel costume from last year!

For foundation, I wanted to go quite pale and give myself that kind of “English rose” type look. I used Too Faced’s Peach Perfect foundation in the shade Snow which is a few shades lighter than I am right now, and then dusted on Urban Decay’s X-Rated blush to the apples of my cheek. I wanted the blush to fade out nicely on the edges, but I wanted the center of my cheeks to be quite bright to make it look like Alice has been rushing around Wonderland wondering where to go!

For lips I opted to put two shades together since I didn’t really have anything I thought fit a “natural” pink colour straight out of the bullet. I first put on MAC’s Mehr lipstick (if it’s good enough for Tessa Virtue, it’s good enough for Alice!) and overdrew my lips on the top a bit to get more of a flower petal type mouth. I then layered Too Faced’s Peach Kiss lipstick in Disrobed on the center to give it a bit more of a lighter peachy hue.

I really, REALLY like how the lips came together – I think the shade is very flattering and has enough of a young girl vibe to them.

While my hair is extremely long right now, I still decided to give it a little bit more volume by popping in my Irresistible Me hair extensions. I had originally thought to go with a wig, but the wig I had for Alice turned out to be downright hideous, so I’m glad I was able to stick with my own hair. By the way, I’ve had these hair extensions for three years and they’re phenomenal. While they were sent to me in PR, I would absolutely recommend them because they haven’t fallen apart at all, they look fantastic, and they wash and style to perfection!

To get Alice’s sideswept bangs without cutting my own hair, I took the entire front chunk of my hair, sprayed in some f Drybar’s Triple Sec to build up some volume, backcombed it a touch, and then wrapped my hair around to the opposite side of where I normally part it. My hair parts on my left hand side, so to switch the part of the other side with a spray of fringe covering my forehead made my hair feel very strange, but it added volume (since my hair isn’t used to being bent in that direction) and helped to give the illusion of Alice’s hairstyle. I used two bobby pins to hold the hair in place and popped on the bow-tie head band.

To add a bit of a younger touch to my nails, I used Mary Kay’s Pink Escape nail polish.

Since I wear gauged earrings in my earlobes, I pulled them out and went for a pair of Joe Fresh fake pearl and crystal earrings that had been sent to me recently. The timing was perfect to be honest – I don’t really change my earrings and wondered what the heck I would do with these when they showed up one day. Well, as it turns out – they were perfect for Alice!

Granted, my hair was mostly covering my ears, but the pretty Joe Fresh earrings did poke out every now and then!

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed the pictures and all of the detail. While Alice was a fairly simple costume, it was a lot of fun pulling together all of the pieces. It’s always a bit of a challenge to go easy on the makeup since I frigging LOVE to pack it on, but every time I do something on the “prettier” and simpler side of things, I’m reminded of how much you can change your look with makeup and how sometimes less product and less colours can really bring out your features. I still love my neon and rainbow eyes, but it was nice to just focus on a cleaner look for once!

Thanks for reading! If you got this far, tell me what you were for Halloween this year!