Let's discuss Marius' Makeup Routine
Right, so ya know that passage in blood and gold where Marius explains his makeup routine. The whole ash and blood thing? It always left me thinking 'what the fuck, Marius? You mixed ash with your own blood, smeared it over your face, and nobody noticed?" It took me until literally last night to understand how this might actually have worked.
The answer, I think, is a combination of colour theory, extremely fine ash, and the fact that Marius was probably applying it much more carefully than the description initially suggests.
I recently started using a Dermalogica exfoliator made from finely ground charcoal powder. When it is mixed into a paste and worked into the skin, it almost disappears. It does not sit on the face like obvious black soot. Instead, it creates a subtle grey cast, darkens the complexion slightly, and leaves the skin looking duller, flatter and more washed out. It also gathers in the natural texture of the face. Hints, wrinkles stand out more,
Suddenly, the entire Marius passage made sense.
The ash would not necessarily have been visible as ash. If it was finely ground enough, it could have behaved more like a pigment. Think less chimney sweep and more translucent cosmetic powder. Applied sparingly, it would soften the brightness of his skin, deepen the shadows around his features and make his complexion appear less unnaturally smooth.
The key word here is sparingly.
Marius probably was not rubbing this mixture evenly over his entire face like a modern face mask. He would have used it strategically. A little around the eyes. A little across the forehead. Along the nasolabial folds beside the mouth. Around the temples, beneath the cheekbones, perhaps beneath the jaw and around the hairline.
Essentially, he was contouring.
The ash would settle into the areas where wrinkles naturally form, exaggerating the shadows and creating the impression of age. It would make the hollows of his face appear deeper and break up the smooth, almost reflective quality of immortal skin. Even a faint grey tone beneath the eyes would make him look tired, older and more convincingly human.
Now, I have not sliced open my finger and mixed my own blood into charcoal paste for the sake of academic rigour. I do have limits. However, I do have a degree in art history, and part of my foundational training involved traditional painting and colour theory.
Grey on its own would risk making him look even more corpse-like. A very small amount of red added to grey does not produce a bright, theatrical red. It creates a warmer, muddier grey. Depending on the proportions, it could become something close to a muted flesh tone: slightly brown, slightly purple, slightly red, but not visibly bloody.
Fresh blood would also begin bright and then darken as it dried and oxidised. Mixed into pale ash, it could produce a range of extremely human-looking undertones. Pinkish-grey around the cheeks, bruised purple beneath the eyes, brownish-red around the mouth and nose.
It's almost like he was creating a glaze like he would in painting. A glaze is a thin, translucent application of colour that changes the tone beneath it without completely covering it. His actual skin would still be visible, but its colour would be altered.
And because Marius is Marius, I doubt this was some chaotic, last-minute smearing of fireplace debris. This is a man who understands painting, sculpture, light, proportion and the human body. He would know exactly where shadows fall across an ageing face. He would know how skin changes with time and which details people unconsciously associate with mortality.
The forehead would need slight horizontal lines. The mouth would need soft creases at the corners. The cheeks would need to look less full. The eyes would need shadows beneath them. The skin would need variation because real human complexions are never perfectly even.
So no, he was not wandering around looking like he had smeared fireplace soot and jam across his cheeks. He was using his own blood as a binding medium and warm pigment, ash as a cool pigment and mattifying powder, and his knowledge of colour theroy and anatomy to create the illusion of age.
