1) Eyes:
- Green eyeshadow: Just take any green eyeshadow (online, drug store, or costume shop) and put it all over your top lid all the way up to the crease with your ring finger or an eye makeup brush (online or drug store).
- Black cat eyeliner: You can use any black eyeliner (liquid, creme, gel, or pencil) which you can get online or at a drug store, and line your top and bottom lash lines. If you do not have watery or sensitive eyes, you can put a black gel or pencil eyeliner in the top and bottom waterlines. Then, make a small triangle following the curve of your lower lid up to the optical socket bone, and from the outer 1/4 of your top lid to that line. This makes a cat eye wing on your eyeliner. After doing both eyes, make sure both eye wings match.
- Black lashes: Then put on some black mascara (online or drug store), and optionally also black faux lashes (online or drug store). Cruella is as extra as you can get, so go the extra mile! Measure the lashes against your lash- line and cut the inside of the lashes down to the length of your upper eyelid. Then, put a small amount of lash glue on the band of the lashes, and let dry until the glue is tacky. Then place the lashes on the top lash- line and let dry. Put on a second coat of mascara to blend your lashes with the faux lashes. Bonus points if the lashes are made of mink fur.
- Clean up: Clean up any fallout from the eyeshadow and eyeliner from under your eyes, on your cheeks, or outside the intended lines with a makeup wipe or a makeup remover on a cotton pad (online, drugstore, or grocery store).
2) Eyebrows: Cruella De Vil has very large, dark black, striking, round cartoon eyebrows. To create this cartoony effect, you’ll need to block out your real eyebrows.
To do this, you will need to lay down all of your eyebrow hairs flat in the direction of natural growth with a glue stick (online, office supply, or craft store).
Then lay down your foundation and concealer (online or drug store) all over your real brows and the area where you want your new brows to be, which will be a rectangle from the eye crease up to a line across the middle of your forehead, connecting the bottom of the rectangle across the top of the bridge of your nose, and the sides on the outside of your real brow ends. Fill in the rectangle with foundation then concealer.
This is going to look super weird because it’s going to look like you have no eyebrows! Next, you can take the same black eyeliner that you used on your lash- line and draw a huge half- circle from the side of the top of your nose bridge up to the middle of your forehead and over the middle of your eye, back down to the outside of your real eyebrow end.
Then thicken the line at the top of the brow so that the front and the end of the brow are sharp but the middle/ top of the brow has more volume while maintaining the roundness of the brow. Then do the same thing to your other brow.
Make sure they match. Suddenly, you’re a 1930’s style cartoon character!
3) Face base: Use your primer, foundation, and concealer as you normally would.
4) Cheekbones: Cruella’ s cheekbones are very high and defined. It’s important to both highlight and contour in order to exaggerate your features and make them more cartoonish. To get this look:
- Contour: use a cream contour (online or drug store) to define your cheekbones. Suck in your cheeks, and draw a line from the middle of your ear under your cheek bones to the middle of your cheek. Then draw another line from the bottom of your ear in a long triangle to meet the inner end of the previous line. Then draw a half- circle shape around the inside of the apples of your cheeks, connecting it at the bottom to the end of the triangle. Fill in the triangle with the contour. Then, wet a beauty sponge (online or drug store), and bounce a rounded or flat side on the contour to blur and blend the color into your foundation in those areas. This will help the contour look more realistic, but you put a lot on in creme because you want to look like a cartoon character. This exaggerated look will help you with this. Also contour your nose by drawing a line on either side of your nose bridge and around the tip of your nose and blending it out as above. Lastly, draw a line all along the edges of your face and blend as above.
- Highlight: This step will exaggerate your cheekbones even more and add more interest to the eyes. Take a silver highlighter (online or drug store), and put it in a line on the tops of your cheek bones and in a line from the top of the apex of your new brows connecting down the outside of your new brow to the previous line. Do this on both sides of the face. Then put highlighter under the new brow from the apex down to halfway down the outside of the brow. Then, dot some highlighter on the inner corners of your eyes to make your eyes pop.
5) Lips: Usually when you have a bold eye look like this one you want to play down the lips, but Cruella De Ville is the kind of woman that goes all out. Get a cherry red lipstick (online or at a drug store) to make your pout pop.
Red is one of those colors that if it gets outside the lines, you start to look like a hot mess very quickly, but this is not really an issue if you are trying to be Cruella. So, use a creamier lipstick so that if and when it smudges a bit you will look extra crazy.
Remember Darling, looking good is better than being good.
Dress and Jewelry:
This is the simple part. Any black mini dress will do. You can find one online, at any major retailer, or a thrift store. Most everyone has a little black dress.
Secondly, get some gold- colored facetted green teardrop earrings. These You can find online or at a costume shop. Your costume will end up looking 101% better.
Coat:
The coat is one of the most remembered and iconic things about Cruella besides her hair, so this will really make the costume. She wears a cream- colored fur coat with red silk lining.
I would suggest, for cost and cruelty reasons, that the fur should be acrylic or polyester, and the silk should be lycra or polyester. This will have to be procured online or at a costume shop. Remember, she worships fur, she lives for fur.
Gloves and shoes:
Cruella is old- school glam and therefore wears red opera gloves always. They should be red silk, lycra, or spandex. You can find these online or at a costume shop.
Her shoes, like those of most evil women in Disney, are very pointed and high- heeled. They are black pointed- toe pumps. YO can get these online, at any major retailer, at a thrift store, or at a costume shop. The curl of her lips, the ice in her stare.
All innocent children had better beware. She’s like a spider waiting for the kill. Look out for Cruella De Vil. At first you think Cruella is the devil, but after time has worn away the shock, you come to realize you’ve seen her kind of eyes watching you from underneath a rock!
Purse and Cigarette holder:
Cruella often carries a short- handled, cream fur purse with three black and cream tails hanging from the front and a clutch- closure. Very 1930s. Again, the fur can be polyester or acrylic. You can find it online or at a costume shop.
Next, you’re going to need a long black cigarette holder. You can put a real cigarette int he end, or just a candy cigarette. The holder can be found online or at a costume shop and the candy cigarette can be found online or at an old- school candy store.
These items should get you in the mood to flick around your cigarette holder and yell at your flunkies, “YOU IDIOTS! YOU FOOLS! YOU IMBECILES!” because they let the puppies get away.
Puppy:
PUPPIES!!! A perfect touch to any Cruella costume is a plush Dalmatian pup to strangle or squeeze. Since 101 Dalmatians was such a popular film, you should have no problem finding a plush toy online, at a thrift store, or at a toy store.
Now, it’s time to GET THOSE PUPPIES!!! This vampire bat, this inhuman beast, she ought to be locked up and never released. The world was such a wholesome place until Cruella, Cruella De Vil.
Jamie
