Joining the battalions of the undead on a budget.

100 yen shop Daiso is filled with cool stuff throughout the year. It’s especially worth a visit right now, though, since in addition to its regular lineup of bargain treasures you’ll also find a whole bunch of Halloween decorations and costume bits.

A lot of them are more on the cute side of the Halloween fun spectrum, as opposed to the scary one. Our Japanese-language reporter Haruka Takagi wondered, though, if the chain has everything you need to put together a seriously terrifying Halloween costume too, and so she set out to turn herself into a zombie, not through black magic, but through Daiso items.

The zombification kit Haruka put together consisted of:

● Makeup sponges
● Fake blood
● Oil blocking face powder
● Concealer palette
● Black gel-type eyeliner
● Tinted lip gloss (red)
● Double-eyelid glue
● Face paint crayon set (basic colors)
● Face paint crayon set (pastel colors)

With the exception of the face powder, each of these cost just 110 yen after tax, and the 220-yen powder brought the total price of our zombification kit to just 1,100 yen (US$7.70). The only other material she used was a tissue, but she already had a box at home (if you’re all out, you can get tissues at Daiso too).

For starters, here’s Haruka in her normal, non-zombie state. Take a good look, because she’s going to come out looking very different when this is done.

Step 1: Take a sheet of tissue paper and tear off a small piece (if it’s two-ply, pull it apart into single-ply sheets first).

Step 2: Using the double eyelid glue, apply the torn tissue paper to your cheek.

Step 3: Tear open the center of the tissue paper. You can use your fingers if you have a delicate touch, or a pair of tweezers like Haruka did (again, if you don’t already have tweezers, you can get them at Daiso). This is going to be where we create our gaping facial wound.

Step 4: The Daiso concealer palette comes with three colors. Apply the green one all over your face, to give yourself a proper zombie base pallor.

Step 5: Apply the beige concealer colors to the tissue paper.

Step 6: Apply the green, light blue, and purple face paint crayons to the tissue and your skin, blurring them together for a more pronounced zombie color.

Step 7: Apply the white face paint crayon to the edges of the tissue paper to blur the border between it and your skin.

Step 8: Now it’s time for some extra grungy decay, created with the black face paint crayon. Again, using the makeup sponges or your finger tips to smudge the color will help create a more convincing look.

Step 9: Apply a mixture of red and black face paint to your cheek where it’s peeking through the hole in the tissue paper, and also to the inside edges of the tear.

Step 10: Next up, the fake blood. This works especially well on the inner edges of the wound, and you can apply it with your fingertips or a cotton swab (which, again, you can buy at Daiso if you don’t already have some at home).

Step 11: Surround your eye with the eyeliner. Use plenty to give the eye socket a suitably hollowed-out feel.

Step 12: Apply the tinted lip gloss, and apply a lot more than you would if you were abiding by the rules of human fashion. The aim is for it to look like you’ve got blood dribbling from your mouth after just chowing down on some delicious brains or choice cuts of human meat.

Step 13: Using the eyeliner, draw some drained-of-blood veins stretching out from the wound.

Step 14: From here, you’ve got a couple options. You could repeat the process to give yourself as many other facial wounds as you like. Alternatively, you could let the singular wound be the focal point and add a few thoughtfully placed splashes of fake blood to your other cheek, which is the choice Haruka went with.

Step 15: Finally, add a top coating of face powder and give your hair a few vigorous shakes with your hands, to simulate how you clutched your head as you dissolved into madness as your last bit of humanity succumbed to your new zombie impulses…

…and you’re now a 100 yen shop zombie!

We’ve gotta say, the results are surprisingly creepy, even under pretty close inspection…

…and things only get scarier with the appropriate mood lighting.

▼ “Terrified” is a mood, right?

It’s not just the 100 yen store supplies that make Haruka’s costume incredibly cost effective, since choosing “zombie” for your Halloween look also means you can wear pretty much anything from your daily wardrobe with this makeup style. Plus, with Daiso branches all over Japan, it’s easy to pick up everything you need if you suddenly get invited to a Halloween get together and don’t want to go with something quite as crazy as Mr. Sato’s last-minute costume idea.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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