Making Up is Easy to Do

One project that I have no problem DIYing for the wedding is the makeup. I love makeup. When I was in the third grade my mother got tired of me raiding her purse for makeup and bought me a makeup kit for Christmas. That's right, third grade! I didn't wear it to school or anything, but it enlivened any number of sleepovers, and I got practice.

Then in high school, I went through two phases: 1. hesher girl (note: Hesher=person who listens to heavy metal and dresses accordingly); 2. goth girl (self-explanatory?). Interestingly, both involved a lot of black eyeliner and bright red lipstick.

I stopped wearing the eyeliner everyday, but kept the red as my signature lipstick color. I remember getting stopped on the street when I was in college by men who would comment on my lips. This no longer happens, which is oddly both relieving and sad. Regardless, I think I'd count my lips as my second-favorite feature (eyes are first).

When I started to belly dance, while other newbies had issues with the makeup part of the costume, I had no problem at all reviving the heavy eyeliner look I'd sported in high school. When I started performing my teacher had firm guidelines for what was allowable: brown eyeshadow, black liner, blush (I never wore this), red lipstick. I guess she did this to make it easier on the less experienced girls. However, I quickly abandoned the guidelines and started wearing crazier and crazier colors...by the end of my time in her troupe, we were all wearing interesting combos like lime green shadow, white eyeliner, and blue/purple lipstick...I think we were being avante-garde? Anyway, in certain performance situations, it really worked (like the art gallery "soundscape" performance), although I have some interesting photos of myself from that time period.

I've tamed my performance makeup a bit, but only some. I have eye shadows, eye liners, and glitter eye liners in every shade of the rainbow, but I tend to stick with a signature red/dark red lip (though sometimes I layer red glitter over the lipstick, a la Hedwig). Not to toot my own horn too much, but one woman who saw me perform at a friend's wedding got my info and asked me to teach her how to put makeup on for her birthday party! The timing didn't work out, since I was busy the night of her event, but it was flattering. Perhaps makeup artistry will be my mid-life crisis career change. I did actually teach a roomful of coworkers how to put on false eyelashes for our work Christmas party (the first secret is that you need to cut those suckers down to size! Noone's lids are that long. The other part is to apply a thin layer of glue, and then wait for it to get tacky, about 30 seconds. The waiting is very important.).

My everyday makeup for work now consists of:

• concealer--drugstore stuff, like Physician's Formula or Almay
• foundation--from Prescriptives, light and doesn't clog pores
• loose powder--from Prescriptives, custom-blended to match my skin color--worth the expense!!
  
• eyeshadow--cheap beauty store find in "taupe"
• mascara--Physician's Formula or Almay in black; mascara is a must thanks to my unnaturally short eyelashes. In fact, if I had to choose just one cosmetic, it would be mascara.
• lipliner--MAC's Half-Red
• lipstick--MAC's Viva Glam V (yes, I'm branching out from red, but a girl needs a daytime look, right?)

Recently I found some new "faces" on MAC I want to try out for performing:






MAC has awesome colors for performance makeup--intense pigments (I wouldn't recommend using their foundations or face powder for that same reason, however!). These faces might seem a bit overdramatic (Scarlet Womanish, even?), but trust me, performance makeup is a different ball of wax from your every day street makeup. You want the person at the back of the room to clearly see your features and facial expressions. And, as we say in my troupe, "More is more!"

I will of course be sporting a more natural look for the wedding, although not too natural, since it's me we're talking about here. I read that glitter doesn't photograph too well, which I have experienced, so I will need to restrain myself in that regard, unfortunately. However, I do plan on wearing a red lipstick, not only because I love a red lip, but also because, come on, red dress = red lips, right? That's simple makeup math right there.

I've also considered looking into a primer like this Smashbox "Photo Finish" primer, available at Sephora:

Primers are supposed to fill in fine lines and even out your skin's texture. You would apply your foundation over the primer. I wouldn't do this for everyday makeup, or even performance makeup, but I thought on a day where I'm likely to be photographed more than any other day in my entire life, it might be a good idea. I'm also considering eye shadow primer so that my eye shadow doesn't crease.

Also on Sephora, this mascara might be a good idea:


This mascara is reputed to both add length to your eyelashes (which I desperately need) but also be tear-proof (which I am also going to desperately need). Supposedly it coats lashes and binds the thinnest of fibers to their tips, creating length, and dries to form tubes which encase lashes and hold a curl. Removal is supposed to be easy; the tubes slide right off with a combo of water and pressure.

Depending on how well this works, I might also wear false lashes. I wear them to perform; they are almost as necessary as mascara. I don't have to wear bejeweled or glitter ones to the wedding, necessarily, but I do need the length.

For eye makeup, I'm pondering either no eyeliner (since I'll have a dramatic lip) and a beige/cream shadow, or perhaps a cat-eye look, like Angelina Jolie or Dita Von Tease:







She's so gorgeous. Sigh. Anyway, the photo on the very bottom is close to what I was thinking of for my wedding look. The problem with this is that my lids are not as full as hers, so to do liner yet still look open-eyed, I need a very thin line (this is less a problem for performance, when my eyes are covered in darker eyeshadows anyway). But, I could do a thin line, so I'm considering it.

I'm also waffling on blush. I don't typically wear it. I like the look of more porcelain skin, and I don't need yet another thing to clog my pores. Plus, I think it can look overdone sometimes. However, sometimes I do like how it looks on people (in the last pic of Dita you can tell she has on just the tiniest amount, and I think it's well done. The blush in the photo above that is a bit too saturated for me). I'm curious about giving it a try. Perhaps I'll experiment before the wedding in order to make up (no pun intended!) my mind on that one.

So, here's the wedding makeup round up:

• primer
• eyeshadow primer
• concealer as needed (I have undereye circles like you wouldn't believe--thanks, genetics!)
• foundation
• powder
• red lip liner
• red lipstick (need to find a new color; MAC stopped making my favorite one, darn them. Stupid limited edition shades!)
• taupe shadow for lid crease
• cream shadow for lid base and brow line; also for inside corner of eye, as Carmindy recommends (makes your eyes look brighter and more open)
  
• potentially some brow pencil
• possibly liquid black eyeliner, waterproof
• black waterproof mascara
• maybe blush
  

And that's it! Easy, right? ;-)