I made a liar out of Gamora last Saturday night at a Halloween Bash at a local bar because I danced the night away!

But guys…I’ll admit. My costume didn’t turn out as well as I wanted. I don’t think I was exactly the right shade of green; I think I was too dark. And I was so exhausted from painting my face, neck, and shoulders over and over again because it kept cracking and peeling off, I didn’t even bother doing her silver facial markings that I even bought a special kit specifically to do. I can’t speak for the marking stencils, but I will tell you the rest of the kit was absolutely a waste of money.

I got it from Spirit of Halloween, the temporary store that comes to town only in September/October. But I’m not going to discredit them completely; I got plenty of actually useful things from them for this costume. For starters, the green “body paint” is extremely light both in color and on my skin; you would need several of these to layer the paint enough to cover my skin. And the lipstick you see in the packaging there??

Looks like green lipstick, right?! WRONG!! It is literally just a clear lip balm. It is useless if you want to be Gamora.

So the kit failed me in two ways I needed to make up for. I started with the green make up by looking at cosplay tutorials on Pinterest but ultimately decided that those methods were too costly and too time-consuming just to go to a party at a bar for 3-4 hours. If I was going to a comic convention all day, I would probably use one of the products or methods these various people online suggested, like crushing a bunch of green eyeshadow palettes and mixing it with foundation. Alas, I was trying to do a fun Gamora look on a tight budget.

Which leads me to the products I actually did use to become the green-skinned badass warrior heroine I so adore:

First, I painted my nails green (actually my mom did because you always do your own nails terribly with your writing hand unless you’re a professional) with the Crayola Green Crayon shade by Sally Hansen. And I started with this green cream make-up found in the Halloween costume section at Meijer by Fun World for $2.

However, I sensed it wouldn’t be enough, and I saw a similar green cream make-up also at the Halloween costume section but this time at Target by Rubies for only $1. I actually ended up going to buy another one the night of the party because I was already running out of the tubes I originally bought before I had to redo my face after it all came off after snacking on potato chips. And on my neck, it just kept cracking in random spots and on my shoulders, it just didn’t want to stay on. The second one by Rubies from Target was actually smoother cream and looked much prettier, which is weird because it came out of the tube looking the shade of army green, but it blended with my other green just fine.

Then, of course, I needed to get actual green lipstick, which is hard to find for a decent price and physically at the store; I didn’t have time to order anything online because it was the week of the party when I finally tested the lipstick from the Gamora kit I had purchased weeks ago and realized it was indeed a huge liar in a tiny tube. I found an actually green lipstick online available at my nearest Target through much difficulty because it’s technically a “lip cream”. It’s “Out of This World” by Nyx. Online, it looked like the perfect slightly darker shade of green I needed, but in person, it was more in the blueish-green family. Alas, I had no other immediately available options. It even looks different in the pictures I took and I don’t know why; I didn’t use flash or anything different. In the first one, it looks like it looked online, pretty much perfect. In the second one, that reflects what it actually looked like in person. 

And I mentioned earlier I was so tired of greening myself for hours that I didn’t bother using the stencil kit for her silver facial markings…but I did at least put some dark purple eyeshadow on, because you can see that in some shots in the first movie.

For her hair, I went with her look Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:

This is one of the few things I didn’t have to buy because I already had (along with the purple eyeshadow and the black boots I wore). I bought this temporary hair dye by Garnier at least several months ago if not longer for something under $10.

I’ve actually wanted to do that to my hair for a long time now, but permanently. I think I only bought this to test it out, see if I like it, but luckily it has served me an actual purpose in becoming Gamora. It only lasted about 3 days, I miss it.

Now, to the outfit…I originally wanted to go for her look in the first movie, but I ended up channeling her look in the second movie. Either way, her look is cool black pants, black boots, and some cool top. And something on her arms/wrists.

I bought super cool leggings from Old Navy that had (faux) leather panels on the sides.

Then I got a black cold-shoulder top and fingerless gloves from Spirit of Halloween. I originally wanted this top so I only had to paint my shoulders and hands (though I also became too tired to paint my hands as well on the actual night of the party). I only wanted to actually have green arms because after considering a tutorial for armbands using colored tights on Pinterest, I was nervous that the shade of tights I could find wouldn’t match the paint, so I ultimately decided to just go for it. But with this top, I was going to create the illusion that I was just wearing long black armbands/gloves/gauntlets, but then I realized it looks like an outfit she wears in Vol. 2 anyway.

I also decided I wanted to carry a sword like Gamora, but hers is very specific and nobody makes toy versions (or decently priced replicas) of it for whatever lame reason. So I just got a generic one from Meijer for $6.

(Pssst…hers looks like this but oh well:)

Now here’s the whole look put together, featuring my friend Hallie dressed as my Star-Lord:

We entered a costume contest that night and actually ended up being finalists!! We would have been in 3rd place but they only gave the winning title and prize to one person. It was down to us, a couple dressed up as Forest Gump and Jenny, and a man dressed as Wilson the neighbor from the show Home Improvement. Then we were out and it was ultimately between that couple and Wilson and the neighbor with his own little fence won. We were so close! So that was exciting. Pictured below are all of the finalists.

Becoming Gamora was harder than I thought and ultimately didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but people still got it and it was still fun going out as a pair.