The Valak Effect: How I Got to Winning our Halloween Costume Party Dressed as a Scary Nun

 The moment the company I currently work for released a memo that there will be a Halloween costume party that comes with a prize for the scariest one, I only thought of one that will be the most effective and everyone can relate to: Valak. Depicted as a lonely nun with a face that is straight out of our nightmares, she is relatively easy to be dressed as but there was one problem for me– having no history with costumes, dressing up and makeup, I had to experiment on how to achieve the scary nun look. 

Such is the theme of my comeback post here on Steemit. I also wanted to share how much effort I gave on my Halloween costume and eventually winning in the contest (more of that later).

First thing that come to mind was to come as Valak in a mask to be as accurate with the character and to lessen the effort on my part. With only a week before the Halloween, I had to dig deep in online stores of the available mask that is ready to be shipped in just 2 or 3 days. But no luck; every Valak face sold online comes from China and is ready on my front door within 7 days. The rest are resold and come with a ridiculous markup. So my solution was to create my own Valak mask from scratch. 

Using stuff bought at a school supplies and grocery store, I got a bare white mask, pens, and charcoal to do Valak’s face. That was everything I needed to get that horror effect plus my innate creativity. But to my dismay, I definitely overdone it. Look at this photo below.

Not convinced with the turnout of my first creative output for a long time, I decided to be Valak in our Halloween costume party with a do-it-yourself makeup and dress. For this, I had to prepare even more because I had not touched any makeup kits prior to this.

As for the dress, I did it myself too with a help of a friend who knew how to sew. We bought black and white scrap cloth in a thrift store and all we needed were pins and threads to get all the pieces together.  Only two days before the party, I experimented on my Valak makeup. With no help on October 30 to present myself with the costume, the task at hand I had to do entirely on my own. One wrong stroke and it could be the end for my grand ambition to win. 

From another store, I bought various stuff to try on my face: whitening facial mask, baby powder, and facial cream as the white base, and black facial mask, black lipstick eye shadow, and eye liner for the scary details.

Here was the result of my first attempt at home, trying so hard to copy Valak. Of course in a dress a friend and I handmade. 

My friend’s comments to me were frank: I had to do several adjustments with the black one to make it closer to the scary character. But then I only had time on the day itself to make the corrections, so it was risky.  But thank heavens, I had ample time to prepare for my final look. I used facial cream as the base of my makeup and damped it with powder. Then I used eye shadow to create that illusion of Valak fierceness and the eye liner to make the supposed cracks near the eyes and lips.

The result was scary I must say, even my officemates were amused about the result.

Going to the venue, I was able to get a lot of good feedback from the people who work in the same building. Some of them took pictures with me, which I appreciate. I thought to myself that even if I do not win the grand prize of P3,000 plus an appliance in the costume party, I’ve already won the hearts of the people.  But of course, in my head, I don’t to feel defeated that early. 

Shortly after arriving in the venue, I became a favorite and got handpicked by the organizer to be one of the finalists. There were several of us who did great costumes but I remain composed. Although the original aim was to win, at the time my goal was to become memorable. I knew right then and there that the competition was stiff.

Thankfully, after judging, I emerged as one of the top 10 finalists. I finished 6th overall and won an electric fan.

For spending roughly Php 500 on the entire Valak costume, it was all worth it. 

And since I was rarely in that costume, before I headed home at already around 11 p.m., I decided to stroll around the closest market and amuse, perhaps scare, the people around. Also did a photoshoot.

The responses, even on social media, were heartwarming. Despite that I did not get what I originally wanted, I felt the love and support for me as Valak, which is far better.