Simple Girl-to-Boy Makeup

I’m practising girl-to-boy makeup at the moment for an upcoming shoot, and thought I’d share the simplest way you can do this. When doing boy-to-girl makeup, you can rely on wigs, colour cosmetics and styling a little more than you can when you’re doing girl-to-boy makeup. No, not all girls wear lots of makeup and have fancy hair, but plenty do and you do rely on stereotypes when trying to express gender with makeup almost as much as you do on physical clues.

For inspiration and instruction, I turned to Making Faces by the amazing Kevyn Aucoin. If you don’t have this book, get it. If you don't have any of his books, get them all. I referred to this page of the book where he explains how he turned Gwyneth Paltrow into James Dean. Yes bitches, that's Gwyneth Paltrow.

This was a very quick look for Kevyn – he used a pre-made brow piece, so it only took him 15 minutes. However, he does into depth about how to do the brows yourself.

Male eyebrows are often lower than female eyebrows, especially as more women than men shape their brows to open up the eye area.. I didn’t want to cover my brows and draw new ones on just to lower them for practicing, but it’s an option1 I individually drew in hairs using thin brow pencils in two colours, extending past my own brow on both ends, and used a clear brow gel to brush the hairs up and add texture. If you don't have a thin pencil, use the tiniest brush you can and a brow cake or matte shadow with mixing medium. Try and mix a couple of colours If you have thicker brows this will be a little easier than if you have non-existent blonde hairs like me!

My male modelling just reads as confused. I look like Karl Pilkington here.

 

I added a very light layer of Illamasqua Skinbase - it's got quite a realistic texture - and did a little spot concealing, but nothing too polished. Moisturiser is fine, but don't do anything to change the texture of your skin in terms of smoothing or pore-filling products like primer - keep it as natural as possible. Don't bother concealing under the eyes either, as after I did my brows, I blended Wolf eyeshadow from Illamasqua, a cool brown, under my eye and across the lid, taking care to really, really blend it out to create natural looking shadows and the illusion of a deeper eye socket. I decided not to use any mascara, but I think next time I will add a bit of clear mascara to the lashes as it didn't look quite right next to the Charlie from Busted eyebrows. Then I swept the same matte eyeshadow across my jawbone to give the illusion of five o’clock shadow.

The five o’clock shadow wasn't reading very well on my camera – in real life it looked pretty good, but then, I know what I look like without it so I thought it needed to be more exaggerated. I stippled Illamasqua brow cake in Thunder into a rough goatee shape and took it along the jaw and up into my hairline. This is where I need to experiment a little more – the shadow was the right tone and I used it both wet and dry to create more depth, but I'm going to order a special stippling sponge to nail the texture - it's not quite shoot worthy yet! If you're doing this and wearing it out, make sure you use a good setting spray or, if you're really invested, alcohol activated face and body paints will last and last.

Lastly, I pursed my lips really tightly and rubbed in a tiny amount of foundation that was slightly lighter than my lips to make them look a bit more chapped and rugged. Any old foundation or concealer will do. I didn't want to do my uber-long hair, so I went with a hat. MANLY HAT.

 

And a cheeky colour shot/comparison. I look like my dad but with a better beard – Sorry Dad!
This is a really simple way of looking more like a boy - concentrate on your eyebrows, add a little depth around your jaw and ignore what you'd normally do to your skin, and you'll be pretty much halfway there. I’ll be back again with a heavier, more theatrical version of female-to-male makeup soon – think reverse contouring, heavier brow bones, exaggerated skin texture/wrinkles!

Have you ever gone drag king/queen?

Jessica…Dragit? Drag makeup experiment

Netflix added RuPaul’s Drag Race a week or so ago, so naturally I’ve been doing nothing else except watching that! I am absolutely fascinated with drag makeup, and even though I’m, you know, an actual girl, I kind of love doing it. It’s certainly a challenge to do and there’s a *ton* of stuff you can learn from doing it, so I kind of see it as a worthwhile waste of a couple hours!

I apologise for the nasty picture quality , but it’s dark and dingy here constantly, and I have a new camera I don’t know how to use yet. Score!

I went more old school, comedy drag than sexy drag which was fun to do!However, let’s just say there are a lot of things I’d try differently next time! I like how the false brows worked out, but I really need to suck it up and try to cover my own brows properly instead of finding creative ways to draw over them as this didn’t work out so well.  I like how the cheeks worked out (low contour inspired by Divine yo) but I can’t for the life of me work out that frigging nose thing all the queens do at the moment. Boo!

 

Next time I try this I’m not going to be scared like I have been, and I'm really going to pile that face on and let it bake! I just physically can't bring myself to apply that much makeup...yet!

I used a whole bunch of crap for this, but if you’re gagging on my eleganza and need to know what I’m wearing please just say and I'll let you know.

Last-Minute Works-With-Everything Halloween Look

If you’re stuck for a Halloween makeup or you get invited to a party last minute, this look is super simple, works with anything spooky and will also work with using any colour scheme. It’s also still pretty and a bit sexy if you’re not into gory stuff. If you keep the eyes and lips the same colour it packs a punch, but doing the eyes just black with an unusual lip colour, like blue, green or a crazy purple, is pretty fun and one of those looks that if you’re not confident wearing bolder makeup, you can get away with more easily as it’s Halloween. You also only need two eyeshadows for the eye and lip look and if you *really* wanted, you could do this whole look with six products – a black eyeliner for your waterline, lipliner and brows, two eyeshadows (a dimensional or multitonal shadow for the eyes and lips, and one cooler neutral to contour a little) white or lighter foundation, mascara and a setting powder.

Eyes: Darling Girl Don’t Teal Me You Love Me applied with Inglot Duraline, Fyrinnae Futuristic Glamrock in centre of lid. Rimmel Brown Black eyebrow pencil, Maybelline gel liner in black. No-brand lashes from Savers.
Face: Illamasqua Skinbase in 01, Sugarpill Tako, cool matte brown from Inglot, MUA Undress Me highlighter, setting powder.
Lips: Blue kohl pencil from Barry M, Darling Girl DTMYLM, Fyrinnae Futuristic Glamrock

I started out with a medium coverage white foundation to pale out my face – just pale it down, not look clown white. I was taking it off after to go to the gym so didn’t want to take it down my neck too far, but I would if I was going out. Contour with a cool colour and use a white shadow to highlight to keep the look a bit ‘dead,’ and if you want a little shimmer be sure to use something cool-toned as well – Sugarpill Lumi would have been good for this look actually! Draw your brows darker and more angular, or with pointed ends for a more evil look, and if you want to, overline your lips as well because if you can’t go OTT on Halloween then when the fuck can you? For the eyes, I mixed a loose pigment with a mixing medium to give me some fluidity when drawing the shape, and then filled in the space with the same colour. I patted a little of a lighter shadow on the centre, slapped on some lashes and liner and then copied the colour scheme I used on the eyes for the lips and I was done! Really, really simple, the hardest part was getting the shape of the eyes and overlining the lips neatly, but you really don’t have to do that part, I just enjoy doing it when I can get away with it. The hair took me about 40 seconds so looks bloody shoddy but if I were going out a few minutes teasing the top,  slicking down the sides and running a flat iron through the ends would make a nice quick faux-hawky kind of look.

The best thing about this look is you can throw on any generic Halloween accessory and still look like you’ve made a bit of an effort because of the bold shapes and colours – kitty ears look cute stuck in a big quiff or fauxhawk, fangs and a quick bit of makeup on your neck for a vampire look is easy and works well, stripy witch tights with a cute black dress and clumpy shoes is spooky too. I much prefer to plan out my costumes and make an effort but let’s be honest, a lot of us don’t have the time or cash so it’s good to have something up your sleeve that’s quick and dramatic.

Keep your eyes peeled for a review of the fangs by the way – they’re awesome!

Ginger Drag

I had a wig and nothing to do, you know how it goes.

Eyes: MUA Undress Me Too Palette, Jesses Girl gold pigment, Maybelline gel liners in Black and Brown (brows), cheap lashes from discount shop.
Foundation: Illamasqua and Avon Concealers, Revlon Nearly Naked to blend, Jessies girl pigment to highlight, MUA blush, stage powder to set.
Lips: Brown from MUA Undress Me Too Palette, Sleek Eau La La Liner in Melba, L.A Colours lipliner in red, Rimmel Apocalips in Siren
Wig: Anabelles Wigs. Earrings, Primark.

 

I still can’t get the hang of using Pears soap to cover brows, I just feel like if I want to add more it messes it up underneath and I can’t get it to look smooth. Anyway, I did this really quickly because I was bored and probably could have done a much much better job, especially on the eyes, but whatever. Do what I want. I like the fact everything is pretty neutral and still looks really out there!