Somewhere in my house on November 1 there is always a little pile of evidence. A false eyelash on the bathroom counter. Glitter in the sink that will outlive us all. A wig on the back of a chair, looking exhausted.
I love Halloween. I love that it's the one night a year when grown women commit to a bit. What I don't love is what the night asks of your skin and how little anyone plans for it — because the plan is always the costume, and never the person inside it.
So here's mine. It isn't complicated and it isn't a ritual. It's three days.
What the Night Actually Does
Think about what's genuinely happening on October 31. Body makeup or face paint sitting on your skin for eight hours. Glitter, which is engineered to cling. A layer of setting spray over the top of all of it. You're warm, you're probably dancing, you're out later than usual, and then you come home at an hour that makes taking any of it off feel unreasonable.
None of that is a disaster. But it's a lot of product on skin that hasn't been prepared for it, and the thing about heavy makeup — costume or otherwise — is that it doesn't hide texture. It finds it. Body makeup over dry shins, over rough upper arms, over the patch on the backs of your legs that you forget about all winter: it settles into all of them, and sits less comfortably than it would on skin you'd spent ten minutes on first.
Which is the whole argument for doing the work before, not after.
Two Days Before: Get Smooth
Not the night before. Two days before. You want the smoothing done and settled, not freshly done on skin that's still deciding how it feels.
Start with the Exfoliating Body Bar. It's a bar of soap that has no business working as well as it does — biodegradable wood pulp microfoliants that buff away roughness and bumps, with cupuaçu seed butter and jojoba oil so it doesn't leave you stripped. From a 34-person consumer panel over one week, 97% noted noticeably smoother skin. In a 31-person consumer panel over four weeks, 94% agreed skin felt instantly polished and refreshed, 92% of participants with ingrown hairs agreed their appearance was reduced, and 88% of participants with bump-prone skin agreed skin texture improved in those areas. Those last two reflect only the participants for whom those concerns applied. It won Best Body Bar at the 2025 Byrdie Beauty Awards. $30, in Dirty Citrus or Detox Greens.
It's also the right step before shaving or self-tanning, which for most people is part of this week anyway.
The Night Before: The Good Stuff
The night before is for The Nudist Body Scrub. Natural brown sugar in a blend of coconut, castor, jojoba, avocado and sweet almond oils, so it buffs and conditions in the same motion rather than leaving you to fix the dryness afterwards. There's a postbiotic and probiotic complex in it too — lactobacillus, bifida and saccharomyces ferments.
It smells like burnt sugar and warm vanilla. Frankly it smells like crème brûlée, and I have never once regretted a shower that smelled like that. $70, and it's dermatologist and allergy tested.
Small circular motions, wet or dry skin, concentrated on the rough parts — shins, elbows, the backs of the arms. Rinse warm. Then follow with Body Butter or Body Oil while you're still slightly damp to layer in moisture — that's the step people skip, and it's the one that makes the difference.
The Night Of
This is where I'd point you at Body Butter Glow. A hydrating body butter with mica and glow pigments for a subtle golden radiance, so you get a lit-from-within finish on your shoulders, collarbone and legs without anything that looks applied. 99% of its ingredients are of natural origin, calculated according to ISO 16128, it's an ELLE First Class Beauty Award winner, and it's $115.
Two things I'd say about using it on a night like this. Put it on before you get dressed and give it a few minutes — anything with a sheen to it and a sequinned dress are a bad combination if you rush it. And use less than you think, especially on the collarbone. The point is that people can't work out why you look good, not that they can see exactly why.
If the radiance isn't your thing, the original Body Butter at $100 is the one I'd reach for instead. In a clinical study of 31 subjects, 100% showed increased skin hydration immediately after use, measured by Corneometer. Clinically observed hydration benefits up to 48 hours.
November 1
Take it off. All of it. I know.
I'm not going to pretend I've never fallen asleep in a full face, because I have, and the next morning is its own punishment. But a proper cleanse at 2am is ninety seconds of your life and it is the single highest-value thing you can do for how you look on November 1 — which, depending on your year, may involve a school run, a brunch, or being photographed in daylight by someone who does not care about your night.
Then keep it simple. Cleanse, hydrate, and go easy. Don't pile on something strong the morning after a heavy makeup night just because you feel like you owe your skin an apology. You don't. Skin that's had a long night wants gentleness and water, not a whole new regimen at 9am.
And if your under-eyes have opinions about what time you got in, that's what Up All Night Eye Cream is for — it's tinted, so it's doing something you can actually see before you've left the bathroom.
The Point
Halloween is a costume. It comes off. What doesn't come off is the skin you were wearing underneath the whole time, and I'd rather that be the part of the night you feel best about.
Be the most alarming thing in the room on purpose. Not by accident, and not on November 1.
One thing before you go: there's something worth having waiting on the site from Monday, and it runs through the end of the month. Worth a look while you're stocking up on the above.
XX HOPE