The Rigid Collodion Shortage

I am deeply concerned about the current shortage of rigid collodion, and you should be, too, for the simple reason that it has terrible implications for my Halloween costume.

I start worrying about Halloween around March of each year, building up lists of possible costumes which I will later ignore, invariably coming up with some new idea in the last week. Recently Japan has caused some interference with my costumery, but I am quite proud of the last two costumes I had:

Inspector Gadget Costume 2004

Here I am as Inspector Gadget. By the way, if you needed the explanation of the previous sentence, please leave this blog and never come back. Thanks. This was an absurdly popular costume in New York in 2004. I had folks leaning out of cab windows to sing the theme song more than once. And no one can deny the intensity of Gadget’s sex appeal.

Jareth the Golbin King Costume

This one is a bit tougher. I’m supposed to be Jareth, the goblin king from Labyrinth, as portrayed by David Bowie. Many people had trouble figuring this one out, but drunk New Yorkers are in a better mood than usual on Halloween, and I got a few, “I love Rod Stewart!” exclamations, and my favorite: “Oh my god! It’s Jon Bon Jovi from Labyrinth!”

I am the first to admit that neither of these costumes is all that well-executed, but they were unexpected and tapped into some serious nostalgia. Er, anyway, rigid collodion…

This year I wanted to do something that would take advantage of my longer hair. I figured it was a toss-up between Hansel from Zoolander and Heath Ledger’s Joker, and I made a commitment to the latter, and I’m starting to think it wasn’t the greatest idea.

Rigid collodion is a liquid that simulates scars. It pulls together the skin as it dries, giving the look of an old cut, something every Heath Ledger Joker needs. I head over to Google Products, née Froogle and find that every supplier is out of stock. I’m sure sales of rigid collodion pick up this time of year, but seriously?! This is not a good sign.

Next, I head over to Amazon and search for rigid collodion. Turns out there’s none to be found, but there is this:

Searching for rigid collodion on Amazon

Let’s see, I asked for a piece of stage makeup kit and am shown none. Instead, I see Joker makeup kits, green vests, purple suits. Bad, bad, bad!

My concern is not so much that I can’t find collodion, as I can always just use liquid latex. But it makes me wonder where all of the collodion has gone to. All signs point to an enormous glut of Jokers next Friday. I am not going to change my plans, but I figure mentioning this ahead of time gives me some claim of priority:

“Oh, the Joker? How original.”
“Yes, I knew they would all be here. That’s why I planned ahead not to suck.”

Update: Success, I think. Rigid collodion courtesy of ebay. It’s a lot of fun to play with but doesn’t leave your face in the best shape.

From Joker

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Gibberish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.