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? 

Give me a head with hair

Tomorrow I’m going to get my hair cut. And as usual, I go in with an idea of what I want. 

 

Daryl Dixon and Michelle Williams: my two biggest hair inspirations

I found people have a strange obsession with women and their hair. About 4 or so years ago I decided to go pixie. I had done it before back in high school when my mother told me she didn’t want me accepting my diploma with hot pink hair and it should be my natural colour for that day.

My hair at the time was shoulder length and a faded pink. My roots were about an inch long and so I had the local hairdresser take it down to my roots. My mother’s response: “I meant dye it back to your natural hair colour!” 

I’ve always loved and wanted short hair. As a child, I’d stuff my butt length hair into a baseball cap so it wouldn’t get caught in branches when I’d play in the woods. I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair past shoulder-length because of my Dad. As my hair reminded him of his mother, I had to keep it long. I put up with it but would whine like the biggest spoiled brat when my mother would have to braid it for pow-wow. That braid was so tight it would pull the skin of my face taunt.

When I cut it pixie again, my hair was just above bra line. The hairdresser tried to talk me out of cutting my hair as “my round face would look terrible” with that short a cut. After mentally noting not to tip her, I told her just to do it as it was what I wanted. I had to keep telling her to go shorter until finally, my hair was less than an inch long and I felt fabulous. The hairdresser even admitted it suited me and ever since I’ve been a pixie. 

It drives me to fits of hysterical laugher when people act like cutting off that amount of hair is some brave feat. When people see my hair, some girls will say, “Oh, I could never go that short! It’s so scary!” A car crash is scary, cutting your hair isn’t.

I didn’t slay Smaug, I just cut off my hair.

But I guess it can be scary as I’ve noticed that people don't censor their opinions of a lady with short hair. I’ve had older women at work inform me that I’d look so much prettier with longer hair. Dude-bros have told me I look like a dyke. Magazines rarely have a model with short hair (unless Michelle Williams has something to promote). It also drives me nuts when folk will insult Carol of The Walking Dead by saying, “Well look at her, she’s ugly: HER HAIR IS SHORT".

 I’d love to know how she keeps her hair that short in an apocalypse when the guys can’t even shave but I digress

I’ll admit I have moments where I wonder if I should grow my hair out. I think about growing it out so I can rock a Betty Page look or braid it like Katniss in The Hunger Games but then I remember I hated looking after my hair and it never looked good on me. Whereas my sister's hair is a manageable cape of Rapunzel-ish beauty, my hair, when it’s long, has a life of its own. It crimps in weird places, it grows awkwardly, and it doesn’t hold a style (my friend took 6 hours to curl it once and the curls started to unravel within half an hour).  And I always used my hair as a curtain I could hide behind. It was an excuse to be shy. And lastly, my hair was usually long because someone else wanted it that way. When I find myself asking why I want to grow my hair out, it’s usually because “Oh, that dude will find me prettier”, “I’ll look more like a girl”, etc. 

Well, fuck that. The reason I don’t grow it out is I love it the way it is. I feel prettier. I like the lightness of it. I like its sharpness. Sure I hate that it still finds a way to grow awkwardly (The back of my head and I hate each other for just that reason) but I'm not planning to grow it out past 2 inches anytime soon. 

My hair being short doesn’t make me any less of a woman despite what some old biddy may say. My boyish short hair is a girl’s haircut because a girl is wearing it (and rocking it).

And if a boy I date ever tells me “I want long hair”, I’ll tell him to grow it himself. 

Soranik Natu, Green Lantern of Sector 1417: doesn't need long hair.