9 Zombie Looks and the Makeup That Sells Them

Zombie is one of the easiest looks to pick and one of the easiest to get wrong.

For a zombie party, wear clothes you’d be happy to ruin: a shirt, dress or overalls in a natural fabric, torn and stained at the collar, cuffs and knees. Then put your effort into the face. Grey-toned skin, hollowed eyes and one convincing wound beat any outfit.

We hold the UK and Europe’s largest horror mask range, and our Pro division kits out scare mazes and film crews, so the zombie costume ideas below come from pieces we sell and see used on real nights.

Why most zombies don’t read at three metres

The clothes are the smallest part of the job. A torn shirt on its own reads as scruffy rather than dead.

What sells a zombie at distance is decay in layers: skin that’s lost its colour, shadow where there should be flesh, one piece of visible damage, and blood that looks wet rather than painted. Get those four and you’ll read as undead across a dark room and in phone photos.

So spend your money in that order. Face first, damage second, garment last.

Zombie makeup: the three-layer method

Zombie makeup works in three passes, and each one does a different job. Rushing straight to the blood is the usual mistake.

Layer one is the base. Take the life out of the skin with a grey-green or ash tone across the whole face, ears and neck. Missing the neck is what makes a head look like it’s floating. Then hollow the eye sockets, temples and cheekbones with a purple-brown shade, blending upwards so the shadows fall where a gaunt face would.

Layer two is the rot, and it’s where the texture comes from. Liquid latex goes on in thin coats, and each coat needs to be almost dry before the next one. Build three or four, then peel a section back and let the edge hang, dabbing red and purple into the exposed skin underneath. That peel is the difference between a grey face and a decomposing one. Set the finished work with powder or it stays tacky and transfers. Scar wax builds a raised bite if you want one.

Latex and scar wax come from a makeup supplier rather than us. If you’d rather skip the drying time, prosthetic transfers and adhesive do the same job in minutes, and both sit in our blood and prosthetics range alongside professional blood in thin and thick grades.

Layer three is the blood, and it goes on last. Thin blood runs and pools, thick blood clings to edges and stays glossy for hours. Use the thin grade for anything that should look like it’s still bleeding and the thick grade around the wound itself. A set of zombie teeth finishes the face off, and they photograph far better than a smear of red across the mouth.

One bit of care: patch-test latex and any adhesive on your inner arm a day beforehand, and take everything off with warm water and a flannel rather than pulling at it.

Nine zombie costume ideas at every budget

Sorting by how far you want to take the look beats sorting by gender. Nine looks across three tiers, then the silicone upgrade if you want to go further.

Built from your wardrobe (about £20)

The shambler is a charity-shop shirt and trousers, distressed and blood-spattered, with the makeup doing the talking. The zombie footballer works well at a party because a shirt and shorts are recognisable at a glance, and grass stains do half the distressing for you. The zombie prom queen wants a cheap satin dress with a tea-stained hem, and the zombie bride takes the same treatment plus a torn veil. Buy second-hand every time, because distressing ruins clothes.

Separates that turn any character into a zombie (£50–£140)

We don’t sell a single thing called “a zombie costume”. What we sell is the parts that turn any character into one, and that’s usually a better costume anyway.

Unsere Bloody Medical Scrubs make a zombie nurse, the Arzt Tod Laborkittel makes a zombie doctor, and the Psycho Killer oder Schädelkiller-Overall give you a generic adult zombie with a silhouette that works in the dark. Our Cowboyhut mit Silikonfell turns into a zombie cowboy on its own. All of them sit in our premium costume range, built for scare actors, so they survive a full night of movement rather than splitting at the seam by ten o’clock.

Add a mask, or add the three-layer makeup, and the character becomes undead.

Film-canon zombies (licensed latex)

Almost nobody turns up as a specific zombie, so the ones who do get noticed. Tarman von Die Rückkehr der lebenden Toten is instantly recognisable to anyone who knows the film. Fulci’s boat zombie, Bub von Tag der Toten und Henrietta von Tanz der Teufel 2 all have officially licensed latex masks in our zombie mask range, and they’re the cheapest route to a mask that convinces. Pair one with distressed clothes in the right era and you’ve got a costume that starts conversations. Our ranked guide to the horror characters worth dressing as is coming soon.

The silicone tier (£450–£950)

Silicone behaves nothing like latex once it’s on. It moves with your face, so expressions carry through, and the edges are translucent enough to blend into your own skin at the hairline. Our Bitten und Gnawed pieces sit at the realistic end of our Silikonmasken-Sortiment, and the Decayed Half Mask leaves your mouth and jaw free, which matters across a four-hour night when you want to eat, drink and be understood.

We’re the only European stockist of premium silicone, so this tier is hard to buy anywhere else on this side of the Atlantic. Scare-attraction owners, working scare actors and collectors are who buy it. Silicone is heavier and warmer than latex, so a half mask is the sensible pick for anything longer than a party.

How to distress clothes so they look dead, not just dirty

A zombie’s clothes go wrong by being distressed evenly. Real damage happens in patches, at the points a body actually wears through.

Target the collar, cuffs, elbows, knees and hems. Cut against the weave with scissors, then pull the threads to fray the edges rather than leaving a clean line. Natural fibres like cotton and denim tear properly and take dye; polyester resists both and tends to melt at the edges instead of fraying.

Cold tea or coffee gives a believable aged tone, dabbed on in uneven patches. If you’re bleaching, dilute it heavily, spray rather than soak, and spot-test on a hem first. Concentrated bleach breaks the fibres down and the garment can give way mid-evening.

Blood goes on last, once the clothes are dry, so it looks like fresh damage over old wear. Our guide to doing Halloween on a budget covers where else to save.

Zombie makeup and costumes for kids

Children can have a great zombie without any of the adult kit. Skip liquid latex, spirit gum and scar wax entirely on young skin, and use a face paint made for children instead, patch-tested on the inside of a wrist the day before.

Keep the gore stylised rather than realistic. Grey-green skin, dark eye sockets and a few dabs of washable blood get the effect, and washable matters when the costume goes back on the peg afterwards. An outgrown school uniform or football kit makes a better base than anything bought new.

Two practical things. British October is cold and often wet, so build the costume big enough to go over a fleece. And full pull-over masks limit what a small child can see, so face paint or a half mask is safer if there’s any road walking involved.

Zombies in a group: hordes, walks and UK events

Zombies are the one horror look that gets better in numbers, and Britain has a proper circuit of walks to use them at. World Zombie Day in London is the big one and raises money for charity, with annual walks in Bristol, Edinburgh and Glastonbury, plus Zombie Fest in Cambridge.

The trick with a group is one shared detail. Nine people in matching hospital scrubs, or a full football team in the same kit, read as a horde. Nine different zombies read as nine people who all thought of zombies. Pick the shared piece first and let everyone customise their own damage on top.

Walks are the one time comfort decides the costume. You’re outdoors for hours in autumn weather, so wear real shoes, choose a half mask over a full one, and keep blood away from your hairline where rain will carry it into your eyes.

Frequently asked questions

How do you do simple zombie makeup?

Grey out the face and neck with a cream base, shadow the eye sockets and cheeks with purple-brown, then add one wound and some blood. That’s a ten-minute face with no latex involved. Translucent powder stops it sweating off later.

How do you distress clothes for a zombie costume?

Work in patches at the wear points: collar, cuffs, elbows, knees and hems. Cut against the weave and fray the edges by hand, stain unevenly with cold tea, and use bleach diluted and sprayed rather than poured. Buy the garment second-hand, because none of this is reversible.

Will fake blood stain my clothes?

Most costume blood is washable and comes out of fabric if you act quickly and soak the garment in warm water. Carpet and grout are less forgiving, so blot rather than rub. Slow-drying blood stays glossy for photographs, which is usually what you want.

How do I make zombie makeup for my child?

Use a face paint made for children rather than any adult SFX product, and patch-test it on the inside of the wrist a day beforehand. Grey-green skin, dark sockets and washable blood are plenty. Keep latex, spirit gum and scar wax off young skin.

Where to start

Undead looks live or die on the face, so build the makeup first and let the clothes support it. Once you know which look you’re after, our Halloween costume range has the separates and masks to build it properly at any tier. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the night.