This is NOT a photo of Molly Edmonds dressed as a witch. (© iStockphoto.com/Anyka)

Well, the big day’s almost upon us. Tomorrow is Halloween, and all this talk of picking costumes and carving pumpkins has me thinking about memorable Halloweens from years past. One year, when I was in college, I decided to be a witch (coincidently, Cristen and I talked about witches on this week’s Stuff Mom Never Told You — head to iTunes to check it out!). But since a witch is admittedly a fairly simple costume, I wanted to make my witch outfit memorable by going whole hog with makeup. I decided to paint all parts of my body not covered by my dress green, a la Margaret Hamilton in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Now, I’m not proud of this, but in my enthusiasm for making myself green, I used some products that were only approved for painting on paper, not for painting on skin. So that was my first mistake. And my second mistake was staying out so late on that fateful Halloween that I fell fast asleep when I got home, as opposed to dutifully scrubbing my witchy self clean. So perhaps you see where this is going — I was given the after-Halloween gift of awful breakouts. I had acne. I had a weird, itchy rash. I looked very scary for quite a long time. Like I said, I’m not proud of this, and I’ve never dressed up as a witch since.

But with a little care, you paint your face tomorrow and avoid my tragic fate. In fact, painting one’s face is much preferable to wearing a mask while trick-or-treating for safety reasons. First off, learn from my errors: Don’t use a product designed for anything other than face-painting, such as food coloring. And if you’re still hoarding last year’s stash of costume makeup, consider buying some new products. If the makeup has an odor, it might be contaminated with bacteria.

As long as you’re out shopping, Therese Ruiz of Northwestern writes that you might want to bypass the costume store’s makeup for professional stage makeup, which has better quality ingredients and will be less likely to cause aggravation to the skin. But if you’re pinching pennies, then just try to avoid the most irritating ingredients in novelty makeup, which include fragrances, preservatives and red dyes (red’s the big one to watch out for, but for a look at all the colors approved by the FDA for use in cosmetics, see this FDA site). Look for water-based makeups, as opposed to oil and alcohol-based products, which can irritate certain types of skin.

The most important thing comes last, though. Be sure to wash your face and body before going to bed; not doing so was probably my biggest blunder in the Great Witch Fiasco. Follow the instructions on the makeup package for removal — if there aren’t any, it’s probably better to use plain soap and water than a makeup wipe, according to the Northwestern article.  Wash your face a few times just to be safe. After all, the only thing you want hanging around after Halloween is candy, not scary skin.

More skin care from HowStuffWorks:
10 Common Skin Irritants
How Sensitive Skin Works
Top 5 Makeup Removers for Sensitive Skin
Is it bad to sleep with my makeup on?