Halloween 2020: Hiring Makeup Artist amid Covid-19 pandemic

With Halloween event coming up soon, how are you preparing your celebration? 

If you are engaging a makeup artist to help with creating your desired Halloween look, ensure that they are well prepared with the necessary disposable lip applicators, mascara wand and eyeliner brush. A professional makeup artist will usually come prepared with all these even during the days of pre-pandemic. In the current situation, these tools are more required than ever.

Some makeup artists might say that they will clean the brushes and sanitise them before using on others during a project. However, in order to properly sanitise these tools, it is not only about using brush cleaner and dipping in 75% alcohol anymore. During this period, in order to sanitise these tools properly, you need to wash them with soap too and let them dry before next use.

We also recommend that you bring your own brushes and products rather than using shared materials. It should be fine to use materials owned by the makeup artist if you are the only person he or she will be doing makeup on. However, if you are part of a large group that requires makeup, having your own products and tools might reduce the risk of infections. I mean, even if it is not COVID-19 infection, no one wants to get flu bug, cough or fever now – because if you do, you need to go through that awful swab test.

Do also take a peek at the makeup artist bag, brushes and products they use. Do they look clean? You might have ignored all these in the past. You should not in year 2020. Nothing matters more than your health.

If you require disposable applicators to standby in case your makeup artist do not own it, we have stocks available at https://www.jrmakeupstore.com/dispensing/ . There may not be enough time to mail the package but we can arrange delivery by hand within Singapore. Email sales@jrmakeupstore.com to enquire.

I would like to also share the following articles which are useful as reference on how to reduce risk of infections when applying makeup products. Here are the links:

• Makeup essentials amidst COVID-19
• Safety & Hygiene in Makeup: Preventing Bacterial and Viral Infections

We had several opportunities on doing makeup for several talents in the past few months. We really appreciate that in all the projects that we worked on, the clients and talents are all co-operative in adhering to COVID-19 safety measures and protocols.

These are some of our practices:

1. Health declaration before coming on set.
2. Temperature screening several times in a day.
3. Changing surgical mask and face shield when handling a new talent.
4. Minimum 1-meter safe distancing between makeup stations.
5. Limiting the number of people in the makeup area.
6. 15 to 30 mins turnaround before next talent sit on the makeup chair. This ensures we have time to sanitise the entire area, wash our hands and change our mask and face shield.

We are always on alert and do our best to comply with regulations issued by the Government of Singapore. Here are two of the links we refer to:

• Mandatory Safety Rules for the Resumption of Content Production
• Safe management measures for MICE Events.

Finally, do not assume the makeup artist you engage will adhere to COVID-19 safety measures. Ask questions before you engage them. Check what measures they have in place and how they have been operating since June 2020. Do consider makeup space, number of people and timing. All these sanitising work, wearing mask and face shield means that we now need longer time to do makeup. Discuss this with your makeup artist in advance. The last thing anyone wants is a cluster at a Halloween event.

A Halloween event should be fun. You might run into ‘zombies’ – but no one should get infected.