‘You might get in trouble’: Man warns Halloween partygoers not to dress as Shrek or Beast Boy. What happens under red lighting is a nightmare scenario

A man from Philadelphia is telling people to be careful if they want to dress up as green characters this Halloween. What seems like a fun costume idea could actually turn into a serious problem depending on where you go. Sean Touey shared a video on TikTok that now has over 2.1 million views. He wants people to know about something that could go very wrong if they paint their faces green for Halloween parties.

“Just a PSA: If you’re going to a Halloween party this weekend and you’re planning on dressing as a character who’s green, like Beast Boy or Shrek, and you have to paint your face green, make sure this party that you’re going to doesn’t have red lighting because you might get in trouble,” Touey says in his warning TikTok video.

The issue happens because of how colors work with light. When you put green face paint under red lights, the green can look dark brown or even black. This means your costume could end up looking like blackface, which has a very racist history in America and is deeply offensive.

Here’s why the science makes this such a big deal

The reason this happens is not too hard to understand, but the outcome can be really bad. Green paint needs green light to look green. When only red light shines on it, there is no green light around to bounce back. So the paint ends up looking very dark or black instead.

The colors we see depend on what kind of light bounces off things and reaches our eyes. A red shirt looks red because it sends red light back to us while soaking up other colors. If you only shine blue light on that same red shirt, it would look black because there is no red light around to reflect.

Red lights are everywhere at Halloween parties. People use them to make things look scary and creepy. They are common at haunted houses and horror-themed events, which means this problem could happen more often than you think.

Blackface started with minstrel shows back in the 1830s. White performers would paint their faces using burnt cork or shoe polish to make fun of enslaved people. These shows spread awful stereotypes and were designed to entertain white audiences while being cruel to Black people.

People on social media talked about their own bad experiences with this exact problem. One person said they got photoshopped out of pictures after going to a party with green face paint when red lighting was used. Someone else shared, “Yes I’ve done this a couple years back I got canceled I promised I was green.”

This warning shows why you need to think about how your costume will look in different places. Green characters are popular choices for Halloween, but the lighting at the party can completely change what your makeup looks like to everyone else.