Does anyone have any tips on how to get white make-up to go on smoothly/mat if your a black (dark skined) person? I am having a lot of trouble with my cosplay make-up. Please help me!

A lot of people won't post here because there's an unspoken thing about ethnicity within cosplay. And when it is spoken about, there's a lot of circlejerking and pointless opinions.

Going a few shades lighter you can do with standard makeup, or theatrical makeup. Going one colour all over will make you look a little odd because human skin has lighter and darker tones to it.

However to go from black to white would make you look albino depending on your features, but if you really want to go for it then start with bodypaint tutorials, waterbased or solventbased. There's a few tutorials online about how to do so for Avatar cosplays or star wars.

To colour yourself up all over takes a LOT of effort, you'll need help. Chances are you won't be able to get away with just one coat, you'll need at least 2-3 and that's as exciting as watching paint dry.

I'm very sorry if I offended anyone, I didn't think about it from a race point of view at all... but I guess I can kind of see the point now that I think about it...
I will try the body paint though and see how it works out.
Thank you for your help.

Don't be sorry, I should be apologising on behalf of CosplayIsland for it not getting answered sooner.

You see light skin cosplayers WILL dark up their skin to match a cosplay. Some won't. It's a sticky issue, so who's to say you can't either? As a guy with tan colour (hell I'm not even brown I'm some kind of beige colour) I don't really try to cosplay many lighter skin characters. I'm quite lucky that all the tanned characters are badass rockin' gods of awesomness, like me.

Do what makes you happy, if anyone has a problem with it then it's their problem not yours. At the end of the day you're only making yourself look like the character, and that's what we do.

Solvent and waterbased bodypaints both have their merits, so really do your homework on them.

I don't think you offended anyone. I personally didn't know where to start at all with lightening skin, as... I've never needed to. I think it's more people are worried about offending other people... somehow... IDK.

I'm glad someone answered though Good luck with your costumes!

I never really saw a problem with anyone changing what their skin looks like for cosplay, either going lighter or darker etc. Why does it matter when some people even go crazy colours like blue or green? All it should boil down to is whether someone is comfortable going to that extent - like some crossplayers will tone and contour their face, some won't. So don't worry about offending anyone - if they are, its really their problem.

As for making it lay smooth, face primer (or foundation primer - I'm not sure of the proper name >.< is brilliant for this as it preps the skins for foundation/ face paint etc. You will still need to do a few layers of face paint/snazaroo depending on how dark your skin is, but also to make sure it is applied evenly rather than patchy.

I particularly like one by GOSH which you can get at superdrug, and its a non-oil gel one which you can pump out of the bottle. But it all depends on how your skin behaves too. My skin only has to hear the word spot and it breaks out, so non-oil was the way, but there are other types of primer too - you can even get eye primer as eyelids behave differently to the rest of your skin!
Hope that helps - I really recommend getting a good eye primer as it helps prevent standard eyeshadow from collecting in the creases too

I am very new to cosplaying so I will just tred more carefully in the future.
I really did think cosplay was one place were it wouldn't matter about stuff like that if you just want to cosplay a character... DX
I am so confused as to if I should do it or not now :S
I don't want to be hated when I just started out.
I just wanted a geisha look... :'(
Well... I don't want to offend anyone so I will just make a new costume... in less that 3days... *sigh*
Thank you for your help and advice

I will still need to get some face primer for other face make-up/painting though so thank you.
I know nothing about make-up XD
Thank you so much

To be honest I'm quite shocked racism was brought up at all, here of all places, of course you can cosplay what you want.

I can't offer much in the way of direct tips XD but don't feel you've offended people here or should've been more careful.

There's the obvious difference of going from dark->light means using opaque stuff rather than anything translucent but look up anything to do with snazaroo or geisha makeup as they certainly produce solid colours, be sure to look up methods of sealing it though as no one likes facepaint coming off over everything you touch XD

Race has been a big hot topic in cosplay lately but I really don't understand why. If anything I think it's more understanding and racially accepting to try and make your costume more ethnically accurate rather than ignoring it altogether, surely? Unfortunately this is the sort of subject where everyone has an opinion - but don't be discouraged!

In any case - makeup and such!

Illamasqua do a wonderful liquid foundation that's pure white. You could use facepaint, but their foundation has great coverage and can be built up much easier, whereas some facepaint can smudge easier with makeup products applied on top (blush, lipstick, etc). It's expensive, but for a geisha look it'd be worth a try. If you have a local counter, they give out sample sizes if you ask nicely and can probably give some tailored advice - everything they produce is stage-standard for theatre, so they're probably one of the best brands to ask.

You can also get a white powders, which are typically used for setting, but some powder foundation is produced in white. I know Stila do a powder in 'fair' which is white but has a good coverage, but again Illamasqua are probably best to ask!

As a suggestion if you need full-body coverage, it might be a better idea all round to see if you can get an appropriately-coloured body stocking/zentai suit. You'll still need to match your makeup colours to the suit, but having one will make getting into the costume a lot easier and less time-consuming, not to mention getting you past the problem of makeup potentially rubbing off on your costume/the furniture/other people.

Will look into them. Thanks for your help!