The Midnight Pumpkin Blog

The Nightmare Before Christmas is the perfect cosplay between Halloween and Christmas! I wore the Party King Bad Dreams Babe costume dress for a Jack Skellington look.

It’s a great costume on its own, but I modified it a bit for my cosplay. Product page is shown below. I’ll review the costume and explain what I modified for my look.

Click here to see the costume on Amazon

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Party King Bad Dreams Babe Costume Dress Review

As far as midrange price costumes go, this one is pretty nice. The fabric is on the thin side, but it is sewn well, and the seams and edges are all finished.

I mention the finished edges, because the first costume I tried was the Disney Jack Skellington Deluxe costume by Disguise, and the fabric on that one was really thin and cheap, like the cheapest costume satin. And the edges were just serged, not even hemmed.

So, I was impressed with a little more craftsmanship on the Party King one.

I usually wear a size 8, and I got the costume in a Large. The fabric is stretchy, and it slips on, no zipper. The large size was a perfect fit.

I am not really a fan of having to slip the dress over my head though and would prefer a zipper. You need to put it on, and then do your makeup and hair, or you’ll probably mess it up trying to pull the dress over your head.

I really liked the way the neckline was stiff and stood out. They did a good job on that part! It’s all attached to the dress, and the neck ties with ribbon.

Party King Bad Dreams Babe Costume Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

The dress is actually cute and comfortable enough to wear more than just for a costume. I saw several people in the reviews with pictures of them wearing it to Disney.

The part that I didn’t like, is the white shirt part in front. It was very thin, and just had an elastic edge, and it cheapened the look of the costume a bit. (It is not showing in my photo because I removed it.)

What Modifications I Made to the Costume

As I mentioned above, I removed the white part and just wore a different white shirt under it.

I didn’t use the garters and just cut them off.

If you want the skirt to look poofy like the photos, you will need a petticoat! I have these Leg Avenue petticoats in every color and have worn them for years: Leg Avenue Petticoats.

The neck piece does not come with this costume. You’ll need to make it, or buy it separately, like this one: Jack Bowtie and Gloves.

Jack Skellington Makeup

I didn’t go full white on the face, but I did a sheer white. I use Mehron Clown White for all my white or light face makeup.

You can make it light and sheer, or solid white, so it also works great if you are doing a traditional Jack Skellington makeup look.

I did heavy dark eye makeup with ColourPop’s Stone Cold Fox palette to look a bit like Jack’s skull eye sockets and then drew the stiches on with a black liquid eye liner. Any brand works fine for this, but the felt pen type tip works the best.

I didn’t have a black lipstick handy, so I used a black eye pencil for the lips. I drew on the lip outline, filled it in and then added a dark red lipstick over it.

The first version I did, I put the stitch marks all through the lips, and I ended up not liking it, wiping it all off, and doing it over. I think with this look, you can get away with not having it across the lips!

I would definitely recommend the Party King Bad Dreams Babe costume dress for a Jack Skellington cosplay or a DisneyBounding outfit.

Click here to see the shoppable pic with products tagged

Two final costume tips:

1. Don’t forget to add the petticoat! Otherwise, the dress just kind of hangs there.
2. Be ready to steam or iron it when it comes out of the package! It looks way better without the wrinkles, and they came out very easily with a steamer.