More parts, but at least no more parts of parts. :)
This is part 5 of my Transgender Makeup series. As I've said in the earlier parts, I'm by no means here to teach anyone how to use makeup as there are LOTS of people far better at it than I am and that's really better meant for Youtube as you can see what they are doing. Rather I'm simply providing my thoughts on shopping for makeup and what has worked FOR ME, obviously your mileage can/will vary.
This post is some random thoughts and such that have come up recently. First off, everything I've already said in the first four of these entries stands. The shopping stuff in part 1 I hope is something that people will find helpful as it seems to be a common issue especially around those early in their transition. The other stuff is mostly comments on things that have worked *for me* as I said. While I have some more thoughts on that, I also want to touch on a realization/revelation that I had recently.
Truth be told I know I'll never be as beautiful as a lot of people who transition. Part of it is how late I started, part of it is as simple as lacking my own natural head of hair, part of it is genetics, and so on. I'm okay - no I'm more than okay with that. I can be pretty enough to be happy and passable and I like to think that's improved over time. Actually I know it has - and the reason I do is that I've kept sort of a photo diary over the last 18-19 months of my transition. Recently I put a selection of those photos up on Imgur.com and organized them by date and labelled with the activity I was heading out for when I could remember. I know it agitates some of my friends that my pictures are all pretty much the same pose and in the same backdrop - either my front porch, inside my front door, or by the staircase going upstairs. That is by design so I have a baseline to compare so to speak. If the pictures aren't more or less apples to apples the comparisons become difficult at best and that's the whole reason I've kept the photo diary. I recently posted an entry that had two links - one for the full timeline and one with a before/after picture and that's really what I want to focus on - I've included the links below for reference:
Comparison: Comparison At 16 Months
Full Timeline: Full Timeline
As I said I wanted to focus on the comparison and the reason I did is that instead of choosing a "current" photo (ie at 19 months) I chose one from three months back - hence the 16 month comparison. Why did I do that? Well it's one of my favorite photos of myself - even though it was November it was still warm enough to get the picture outside; but it was more than that. While I have had days/photos since then that I liked, none of them the last three months have I liked as much as that. Normally most people might say "so what" that happens and I suppose it does. However, it was more than that, not only did I not like any recent photos as much, after looking at them in a more or less slideshow fashion I determined why I didn't like them as much.
Now before I discuss that let me first say that there are flaws in each of those photos the last three months; but there are flaws in every photo I have and with almost every photo everyone takes - I understand that. But this issue permeates virtually all of them and it's my makeup. Specifically the lipstick and blush that I love so much and talked about in my earlier entries. I've always loved heavy blush on a woman and I like to wear it. I suppose there's no reason I can't; but I've come to the realization that it can't be the NYX one that I love so much. It does something to my face that I just don't like. The second and bigger issue though is the lips. That Milani Lovely Rouge #106 that I raved about - as I said then it looks more purplish in the tube than red, but on me it's bright - too bright. Some women can pull off pale with bright lips - Taylor Swift has done it just about perfectly and she's not the only one - but I simply cannot. The worst part of it is that I always upload the individual photos to my Facebook account and as such they end up in my feed. One dear friend - an online friend that I've never met in person - has consistently pointed that out. She's wonderful in that she can be critical in the way that *I* need someone to be critical. She's the first to tell me I look nice when I do and when I don't - well she doesn't say that I look bad, she tells me what she thinks I could change to look better. Friends like that are worth their weight in gold, love you M.N.....
So as much as it pains me, that lipstick and blush is being retired from my collection which is a shame since I have about 10-15 tubes of the lipstick since it was a discontinued line, but hopefully I can now go back to being happy with my photos again.
The second topic here is makeup brushes. If I've covered this before I apologize, but the Dermablend that I use sometimes is virtually impossible to get completely out of my foundation brush. I finally bought a duplicate brush just for that, but then M showed me how to fix that. She gave the brush a quick rinse in water and then filled a small container with some olive oil. She then twirled the brush in it until everything was coated well. She then dumped that out and added a bit of water and some regular dish soap and used the brush to mix it together and again twirled the brush for a minute. Finally she gave the brush a good rinsing and we left it to dry. Later on that evening when I went back to it, it looked and felt brand new. It hasn't been that clean since the day I brought it home. Thanks so much M - all that Youtube watching you do really helped me.
This makes three entries today and I normally confine myself to one, so I do apologize for that. Gotta run.
- M
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