Saturday, August 31, 2013

I want you to believe in yourself, imagine good things and moisturize, I cannot stress this enough.

Makeup is such a mystery to me. I'm intrigued by the artistry that goes into putting it on. Though I do love the look of "natural" makeup, there are so many eye shadow colours available that I never knew why anyone would limit themselves to browns and nudes.

This summer, I decided I was going to start wearing makeup. My current routine is just Clinique's City Block in SPF 25 with the occasional foundation and blush for work. Putting on foundation continues to scare me as I'm nervous I'm going to look like Miss Chi-Chi Rodriquez before she was a full-fledged queen.

"And I'm gonna try and find a foundation that's a little closer to my actual skin tone."

I never learned how to apply makeup.  Usually, teenage girls learn from their older sisters and moms. I only had a younger sister and my mum didn't wear makeup so I didn't have anyone to learn from. I had friends who had their "beauty" routines but after my best friend gave me some horrible advice one summer, I stopped asking them questions. I have my father's genetics, which means naturally big eyebrows that have a mind of their own. As puberty hit, I became extremely self-conscious about them. I asked my best friend what I should do and she suggested I take my dad's shaver and "shape" my eyebrows. I accidentally shaved off half of my right brow and spent the next two months wearing Bono sunglasses to hide my lack of brow while it grew back in. 

As I entered my twenties, I always hated getting makeovers because the makeup artist would want to focus on a feature I didn't like about my face. I'm a bit self conscious about my lips and a makeup artist will get their hands on them and blow them up with gloss and dark pigment to an allergic reaction-ish size. I'd look at my huge Jagger mouth and feel like my head was about to fall forward from all the weight. 

Makeup should be about making you feel good about yourself. I've always wanted a makeup artist to focus on my eyes and it wasn't until I met this one guy at the MAC counter that he did what I asked him to. I looked like Pris from Blade Runner after the MAC guy was finished and I loved it. 

During my Voice class this year, I met the awesome Cella. I loved how fantastic her makeup looked. She looked like she had just walked out of a magazine and she put so much love into doing her makeup. During our random chats before class, Cella would tell me about getting unwanted comments about how excessive her makeup is. I told her how people would tell me my hair was too short for a girl. We told each other how we would tell these people to shove it. 

Cella does her makeup for herself and it's something I really admire about her. Her makeup never seemed like it was something she was hiding behind. Confidence is all about you. You can constantly be called beautiful but unless you believe it, no one can change your mind. In a world where you're bombarded with conflicting messages on how you have to be perceived by others, it's better to take back that power and decide for yourself how you want to be presented to the world. 

I went to Sephora recently and bought a brow powder set as I wanted to learn how to draw in my brows so they can look fuller. Also my love for Batwoman finally got me over my self consciousness over my lips.

I got Batwoman's lipstick matched to MAC's Russian Red and keep it around for days when I want to feel bad ass and/or fancy. I also added the orangey juicy clementine to my makeup bag, which goes awesomely with my bright eyeglasses, after everyone at makeup counters kept trying to give me pink lipsticks.

I may not have a makeup routine but it seems to lean towards the unique.

My job ended recently and as a parting gift, my coworkers got me a gift certificate to Sephora that includes a makeup lesson. Here's hoping I can get out of my shell a bit more with their help.

Any funny/embarrassing make up stories? 

1 comment:

  1. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to comment but holy smokes Sonya your post made me incredibly happy. You're such a fierce mo' fo' and I'm happy I could help with your self love journey. My eyebrows salute you!~~

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