Young Celebrate Halloween in Downtown Tehran: Costumes, Makeup and Street Celebrations Ahead of October 31
15. Halloween Makeup: An International Beauty Trend
The beauty industry has increasingly embraced Halloween as an opportunity to showcase creative makeup techniques.
Professional makeup artists use the occasion to demonstrate special-effects techniques, artistic face painting and dramatic transformations.
Online tutorials have also made these techniques more accessible to ordinary users.
A Halloween makeup look can be relatively simple or highly elaborate.
Some participants choose dark lipstick and dramatic eye makeup, while others use face paint to create supernatural or horror-inspired appearances.
Popular techniques include contouring, special-effects shading, artificial wounds, colored contact lenses and theatrical facial patterns.
In recent years, Halloween makeup has also become connected to professional photography.
Photographers frequently use carefully designed lighting and backgrounds to highlight makeup details.
The young Iranian woman photographed wearing Halloween makeup at a cafe in downtown Tehran is one of the individuals featured in the October 30 photo collection.
Her appearance forms part of the broader visual story documenting Halloween-inspired activities in the Iranian capital.
16. Halloween in the Middle East: Beyond Traditional Celebrations
Halloween has attracted attention in several Middle Eastern countries, although the level of participation varies considerably between cities and communities.
In some locations, shopping centers, entertainment venues, international schools, restaurants and private organizers arrange Halloween-themed activities.
Dubai, for example, has developed a highly international entertainment environment in which seasonal events and themed celebrations are familiar features of the calendar.
Other major cities in the region also encounter Halloween through international media, fashion and tourism.
Iran presents a different cultural environment.
Halloween is not an official national celebration, and participation is not universal. Nevertheless, some young Iranians engage with Halloween through costumes, makeup, photography and private social gatherings.
The Tehran photographs offer a documented example of this participation.
They are particularly interesting because they show individuals celebrating in an ordinary urban environment rather than exclusively in a formally organized entertainment venue.
October 31, 2026 | 6:19 pm
