If you have ever tried to do a mime, clown, animal or rock star make-up, I am sure you have had issues.  
Smearing, Smudges, muddy colors, and no line definition.  There is a simple and inexpensive solution to these problems: Powder. 

Or more correctly make-up setting powder. We carry several versions of these but they all work in the same way.

There are three main categories of make-up that we sell; Grease or Cream based, Water based, and Water applied. Of these, Water applied make-ups like Kryolan's Aquacolor do not need to be powdered and they are in powder for to begin with and
Will set themselves as soon as the water used to apply them dries.

For our examples we will be focusing on two of these powders; Neutral Setting powder, and Ultra White Setting Powder. 
You can substitute the Neutral Setting Powder for the White without any ill effects.

Our first lesson on using powder is going to be a separated color design, to keep it simple I have decided that I want to be Gene Simmons of Kiss.
His make-up is just two colors White and Black, which is good because it will show the power of powder. Our first step is to use either a small brush loaded with black make-up or a black make-up pencil to draw the outline of the widows peak from the hairline to the top of the nose. Continue with the jagged design around each eye.  For now we are just doing the outline we will fill it in later.

Take your powder puff and sprinkle a generous amount of the Neutral Powder on it, fold it in half and rub the two halves together to load it into the puff. Holding the back of the puff pound it lightly into the black lines you just drew. Make sure not to wipe but to tap repeatedly, lifting the puff away from the skin before moving it. Do this over all of the black.  Now take a clean DRY washcloth or better yet a powder brush and dust off all of the excess powder.

Clean your brush, or grab a different one, and work the detail areas of the white. Since we have set our black make-up with the powder we do not have to worry about the colors mixing together and mudding up the design.  It is still reccommended that you do not try to 'cover' up the previous color, but it is not such a worry now.

Once the details are done, working from the detail area and away fill in the rest of the white.  Once all of the white is done, either take a clean puff and load it with the white powder, or use your Neutral puff and repeat the pounding process, adding more powder to the puff as needed, and again dust off the excess.  The only reason for using the white powder here is that it will pump up the white of the make-up, without it and using the neutral your make-up will still be white, just a touch less so.

Now fill the last of the black outlines, working away from the outlines, powder again with the neutral powder and viola you are done.  Provided you have not laid the make-up one with a pallet knife and you worked the powder into all of the make-up coverage, your make-up is now safe from rubbing off, sweating off, or kissing off.

If you are doing a more blended application like a bruise, or animal face, where your colors need to blend together just wait until you have finished your application and powder the whole thing with Neutral.

Hope that helps

Happy Halloweens