I'd have thought black rugby-style stripes would have been sufficient if the intention is to disguise while looking as scary as possible (why is that, incidentally, is it because border steps are essentially skipping, so need to be macho'd up)?
I can see that the fashion for black clothes (now why does that ring a bell here?;-) would tend to suggest black make-up, but it needn't be full face. I just noticed some molly dancers in an old newspaper - looking like, well...
It's those unqualifiable images that do the damage. It's irrelevant whether people jump to wrong or right conclusions. They jump, and in their thousands.
Meanwhile a few dancers manage to put their case to a handful of people - and quite a few of them won't accept it.