Announcing the Winners of Engoo's 2022 Halloween Costume Contest

I've been an Engoo tutor for more than a year now. Every day I meet different people from different parts of the world, and everyone has a different personality.

It's quite challenging since my culture, the Filipino culture, is very different from other cultures. I have definitely become more open to listening to a variety of opinions during our lessons and also learned to put myself in my students' shoes so I can understand their perspective.

I enjoy teaching my students, and I feel happy whenever I give them a great experience throughout their whole class with me.

Furthermore, I really love how flexible my working schedule is. I can work any time depending on my availability and how much I want to earn. Nothing beats the flexibility. I'm really glad that I became an Engoo tutor!

When I read the contest announcement, I was hesitant to participate because I knew I had a very small chance of winning. There was only one week to prepare, and I had never participated in a contest like this before. But then I told myself to just try – I could be one of the winners, who knows?

Then I brainstormed and came up with the idea of being a mermaid, though I was not totally satisfied with it, because I wanted to portray something with a darker character, and mermaids are too pretty and charming.

Eventually, I decided to be a siren. And since we do have a bathtub at home, I was positive that I could have a good representation of a captive siren and capture a creative shot in the water.

After deciding to be a siren, a lot of ideas started appearing in my head so much so that I couldn't sleep well at night. I was excited and anxious at the same time.

Everything was DIY. I tried contacting professional artists and designers to help me out but they were all busy. I felt very sad at the time.

Luckily, my husband gave me hope and suggested that we just DIY everything – we could save a lot of money that way too. So instead of backing out, I agreed to his idea. I bought anything associated with the ocean (shells, ferns, plants, clay for the starfish, moss, etc.) as well as skeletal hands to make the costume look creepy. I also went to my parents' house and found some dried twigs from their tomato plant which I could use as additional props. And of course I bought latex paint for my face and body.

During the preparation for the shoot, my husband first glued tissue paper on my face to form the gills. Then he started painting my body while I painted my face. It wasn't that difficult since we'd already watched how to do it on YouTube. However, it took a lot of patience to paint and put details on my face since I was already wearing mesh contact lenses. My vision was very blurred as a result and I had a headache focusing on where to paint.

The hardest part of it was the photoshoot itself, because I was literally lying in a bathtub full of cold water, trying not to soak my painted face and body. I had to put something on my neck so I could float because it was too painful to keep my head above water on its own. I was shivering half of the time. It took us a while to start because we had to arrange the wig, and we had to cover the thing that supports my neck with the wig as well. We took as many shots to capture the best pose. After everything, I felt tired and had neck pain!

Yes, Halloween is popular. However, we don't really have big Halloween celebrations in the Philippines in general. There are just some shopping malls that hold contests for children and let them trick-or-treat in the different shops in the mall. Also, some companies nowadays hold contests or encourage their employees to wear costumes.

My favorite thing about Halloween is seeing people wearing spooky and funny costumes. Especially on social media, I could find really cool and creative people who totally unlocked their inner imagination. And of course, I enjoy binge-watching horror movies on Halloween.

One of my students was shocked when he first saw me. My face was green, my body was green. He really looked surprised, but as we continued chatting about Halloween, he sincerely told me that he was rooting for me to win the contest.

I wholeheartedly want to thank the staff for choosing me for first place! Thank you so much! I was in awe when I saw the announcement and I cried. I couldn't believe I won such a huge amount of money.

I will use the prize money for our home. We moved into our new house in 2021 and we still have a lot of improvements to make. Specifically, we will use the prize money to build a cantilevered folding gate and fence for our front yard. And when it's done, I'll be reminded of the memories from this contest every time I see it!

I've been working with Engoo for two years and three months now. Engoo helped me a lot especially during the pandemic, when this job became my bread and butter.

The past few years I've been very busy with my full-time job so I don't have as much time to tutor. But I'm glad Engoo is flexible and understanding of our schedules!

I really had a hard time deciding on a costume. I knew that it would be difficult for me to pull off a superhero costume and I also knew that I needed to be creative and think outside the box.

Then I remembered that since childhood, I have been really scared of monsters that have bloody faces, so I thought "Why not try being one for my costume?" Maybe it'll also give me the courage to not be scared of them anymore.

It was really difficult because it took me a week to make the prosthetics on top of my hectic work schedule (I work 17 hours a day) and my usual errands. So the first thing I struggled with was how to manage my time.

The costume itself took me six hours to complete. Since I'm not used to wearing contact lenses, I needed 30 minutes to put them in each of my eyes. On top of that, I didn't have anyone to help me put on makeup, so I had to blend the makeup and put it on myself. It was my first time putting makeup on myself!

Halloween is not that famous in our country especially not in my city, so this is my first time wearing a scary costume.

I don't usually celebrate Halloween. Instead of celebrating, we take this time to visit our loved ones in the cemetery.

The day I wore my costume, I had a class with a new student. He was really shocked and scared, but eventually he became interested and asked a lot of questions about how I made the costume.

To be honest I wasn't expecting to win second place. I felt pressure when I saw some entries that were really amazing, but there was a part of me that knew I could make the Top 10 and luckily I was right.

This will be the best birthday gift for me since it'll be my birthday on November 26. This will be the best birthday for me in my entire life. Thank you Engoo! I will join again next year and I'll make sure to do my best to scare all of you!