My quest for the perfect white eyeshadow
I promised to do some retrospective blogging once I got back and settled, so I thought I'd start with this little tale from my shopping trip on Friday.
I've talked before about my cosmetics fetish, and my favorite part of making up is the eyes. The eyes are the most expressive area of the face, and good eye makeup can really enhance this. I find this is the area where I can be the most creative, and I love seeing the ways that other girls do their eye makeup, particularly recently Miss K - those wide oriental eyes, what a great canvas to work on!
I like to mess about with different colour combinations and styles although to be honest I tend to stick to one or two "looks". I use a technique borrowed from the "drag" end of the spectrum, but toned down to be a bit more natural, but still dramatic and OTT compared to a "regular" girl's.
I like using white or gold just inside the brow to lift the brow line, blending it with a strong colour over the socket and eyelid, and a dark colour in the outside corner of the eye extending out a little way to widen and add drama the eye. I've got a horde of great strong eyeshadow colours, but I always had trouble finding a really good pure white eyeshadow. The Boots-counter jobs always seemed too silvery, or too pale, or just terrible at staying put.
So while I was in Birmingham Selfridges on Friday I thought I'd make a visit to their MAC counter. I love MAC stuff, as a tranny it presses all the right buttons. It's dramatic, well made, reassuringly expensive and they use Ru Paul as a spokesmodel, what more could a tranny want?!
The counter in Selfridges was very busy, but I knew there was a proper MAC shop somewhere outside the Bullring and in Birmingham town centre. After a bit of wandering about I found it in a side street. Like an up-market candy store they had all their 100+ eyeshadow colours laid out as samples to try... including 3 different kinds of white and one that was absolutely perfect. A white frost that went on sheer but was intensely white and blended well. Only one problem, they had none in stock!
It's times like this I wish there was some kind of tranny licence. These days I have no qualms about asking shop assistants about girly stuff (using the "my money's just as good as anyone else's" defence), it's just sometimes I wish they knew I was actually quite a dedicated tranny (albeit currently in male mode) who actually knew what he was talking about and was appreciative and aware of the different products on offer. Sometimes I worry that shop assistants think "oh it's just a tranny, I'll fob him off with anything". Maybe that's just paranoia.
Actually the assistant in MAC (who are supposedly more T-friendly than many) turned out to be quite helpful, and when I asked if she knew if the busy Selfridges counter would have it she offered to ring up and ask for me. Yes please!
They didn't. Would I like it if I rang the Harvey Nicholls counter?
Hang on... there are three MAC outlets in Birmingham?
Apparently so... and the third one did have the eyeshadow I was after.
Harvey Nicks is in a new-ish shopping centre in Birmingham called the Mailbox. It was the far side of the town centre from where I was... but worth the trek!
Thirty minutes later I was the proud owner of "White Frost"... the Perfect White Eyeshadow.
And the first person to get to try it was Sophie. During a vodka-fuelled session later that evening she asked (mad drunken fool!) to see what a "Becky" makeover would look like on her.
Oh... I also bought a dark blue eyeshadow, and a brown blusher cos I was feeling flush. The assistant reminded me that if you bring back six MAC empties they give you a free item. But judging by the fact that I've been using another MAC blusher for about 18 months and it's such high quality that it's gone down in level by about half a nanometre... I don't think I'll be having any empties any time soon!
Um... kind of a dull long-winded post about makeup. Sorry about that! I told you I was obsessed! Perhaps maybe some people appreciated the insight into makeup techniques, I can but hope.
Well, that's Friday restrospectively blogged... I'll get round to blogging the rest of the weekend eventually!
I've talked before about my cosmetics fetish, and my favorite part of making up is the eyes. The eyes are the most expressive area of the face, and good eye makeup can really enhance this. I find this is the area where I can be the most creative, and I love seeing the ways that other girls do their eye makeup, particularly recently Miss K - those wide oriental eyes, what a great canvas to work on!
I like to mess about with different colour combinations and styles although to be honest I tend to stick to one or two "looks". I use a technique borrowed from the "drag" end of the spectrum, but toned down to be a bit more natural, but still dramatic and OTT compared to a "regular" girl's.
I like using white or gold just inside the brow to lift the brow line, blending it with a strong colour over the socket and eyelid, and a dark colour in the outside corner of the eye extending out a little way to widen and add drama the eye. I've got a horde of great strong eyeshadow colours, but I always had trouble finding a really good pure white eyeshadow. The Boots-counter jobs always seemed too silvery, or too pale, or just terrible at staying put.
So while I was in Birmingham Selfridges on Friday I thought I'd make a visit to their MAC counter. I love MAC stuff, as a tranny it presses all the right buttons. It's dramatic, well made, reassuringly expensive and they use Ru Paul as a spokesmodel, what more could a tranny want?!
The counter in Selfridges was very busy, but I knew there was a proper MAC shop somewhere outside the Bullring and in Birmingham town centre. After a bit of wandering about I found it in a side street. Like an up-market candy store they had all their 100+ eyeshadow colours laid out as samples to try... including 3 different kinds of white and one that was absolutely perfect. A white frost that went on sheer but was intensely white and blended well. Only one problem, they had none in stock!
It's times like this I wish there was some kind of tranny licence. These days I have no qualms about asking shop assistants about girly stuff (using the "my money's just as good as anyone else's" defence), it's just sometimes I wish they knew I was actually quite a dedicated tranny (albeit currently in male mode) who actually knew what he was talking about and was appreciative and aware of the different products on offer. Sometimes I worry that shop assistants think "oh it's just a tranny, I'll fob him off with anything". Maybe that's just paranoia.
Actually the assistant in MAC (who are supposedly more T-friendly than many) turned out to be quite helpful, and when I asked if she knew if the busy Selfridges counter would have it she offered to ring up and ask for me. Yes please!
They didn't. Would I like it if I rang the Harvey Nicholls counter?
Hang on... there are three MAC outlets in Birmingham?
Apparently so... and the third one did have the eyeshadow I was after.
Harvey Nicks is in a new-ish shopping centre in Birmingham called the Mailbox. It was the far side of the town centre from where I was... but worth the trek!
Thirty minutes later I was the proud owner of "White Frost"... the Perfect White Eyeshadow.
And the first person to get to try it was Sophie. During a vodka-fuelled session later that evening she asked (mad drunken fool!) to see what a "Becky" makeover would look like on her.
Oh... I also bought a dark blue eyeshadow, and a brown blusher cos I was feeling flush. The assistant reminded me that if you bring back six MAC empties they give you a free item. But judging by the fact that I've been using another MAC blusher for about 18 months and it's such high quality that it's gone down in level by about half a nanometre... I don't think I'll be having any empties any time soon!
Um... kind of a dull long-winded post about makeup. Sorry about that! I told you I was obsessed! Perhaps maybe some people appreciated the insight into makeup techniques, I can but hope.
Well, that's Friday restrospectively blogged... I'll get round to blogging the rest of the weekend eventually!
Labels: transvestism
Hmm so white just under the eyebrow? I tend to go for subtle colours as I don't want to look "too tranny" but looks like I need to try smething stronger.
I have fairly deep set eyes so need to perfect "opening" them up.
Oh and any eyeliner tips as that is a nightmare!
I was looking into wearing eyeliner even in boy mode. There are some guys who do it. But I'd have to get good first.
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