Clothes, makeup, hair, and other such things

Um, in a an ulta or sephora there are generally testers, but bring some disinfecting wipes with you.
I generally just buy the color and wear it no matter what, but that might not be everyone's favorite plan.

 

well if you can make the trip to a store you can use the testers and maybe even ask the staff for tips (tru story when I ordered my blue lipstick in store the clerk had me promise to come in at a specific day to collect it, while she had a hours so I could show her because she was so excited about blue lipstick)
otherwise there is the back of hand test which is where you put a product on the back of your hand to see how it looks with your teint in general. if you have uneven tanning across your body you might wanna try the inside of your wrist instead.
Otherwise with online shopping... hmm... I'd see if you have/can find an eyeliner in the color you want and just quickly use that as you would lipstick to test and see if you like the color on your lips?also cheap dupes are your best friend to try stuff out.
With blue it's actually easy: match undertones (warm blues with warm skintones, cold blues with cold skintones) (though if you ahve the skill you cna get away with opposite undertones by tweaking the other makeup) (I'm rambling) and be aware that blue and purple exaggerate yellows so if you have trouble with your teeth looking yellowish it might get worse with blue and purple lips. If you ahve perfect white teeth, or plain don't care (<- me) just get a lippie and have fun.
Since blue is so out there you can actually get away with it easier than with ill-considered oranges or pinks :P

 

Resuscitating this topic because halp. I'm bad at makeup, no-one taught me and no-one in the house is willing to teach me so I know fuckall about what I'm doing. Apparently it's one of those things people "just learn" that I missed out on, like how to scramble eggs.

I can do foundation (+ have mastered concealer, it is a necessity when you're an insomniac with acne and bruise easily), lipstick, and mascara pretty well because they're basic. But other eye makeups make me want to cry from frustration which is bad when you're doing makeup. Blush and contouring I've never tried because I don't even know where to start. Also getting things to stay PUT because I live in Cali and have sweated off foundations that claim to be immune to that sort of thing, also I'm an insomniac who regularly rubs at my eyes which makes my shadow go away and my liner smear. (And some of the 'stay put' lipsticks are fukin LIARS)

Tricks for doing liner when you have perma-shakey hands? How to multi-color shadow? How to shadow at all? Assume I'm a small child and don't even know what brushes are what.

I love lipstick and a thousand THANK YOUs to @emythos for introducing me to ColorPop. Next month I'm getting even MORE fun colors. It's just... the rest of my face that's the problem.

 

HELLO I AM HERE
Contouring is not really necessary to life unless you're going to be in a photoshoot. Forget about it.
Do you have eyeshadow primer? If not, buy eyeshadow primer. It's a lifesaver.
With eyeliner, okay. Start by only lining the undereyes. That's easier to fix. (also, use pencil liner. Liquid eyeliner of any sort is a bitch with shaky hands)
Eyeshadow:
Start by liberally coating your eyelids in primer. Then, take your eyeshadow, pat some on a fingerpad, rub that on eyelid while looking in mirror to keep it even.
If you want to do more than on color, put one color on one side of your eyelid, the other on the other side, then rub the middle with a clean fingerpad. Tada, pretty eyeshadow!
Blush. Well. Use VERY LITTLE. (I am not good at blush.)

 

you can try resting your hand against your face while applying liner ::D
as for contouring, ive been told drag queen tutorials teach that real good?

seconding @emythos re: liquid eyeliner tho. even if it looks really strong andnice, its awful

hm, do you put on powder? ive found that most of my stuff stays on good if i use powder.

 

Liquid eyeliner was invented by demons to increase soul selling, I swear.

 

I was checking out contouring because someone posted a crossplay tutorial for making faces more masculine but it assumes you have a the first clue about contour.

When I was experimenting more with eyeliner I'd do around the eyes with pencil but do swirly designs next to them in liquid. S'okay to be imprecise for swirly doodles.

I've been told not to put liner on the 'lip' of the lid (and wouldn't risk it because, well, shaky hands stabba eye) but when I do it just under/over I can see a gap even after mascara. Is there a way to do non-smokey/smudged liner without risking eye trauma?

And for single color shadow what's a good place to stop at? I try to keep it to the lid only, maybe fade it up to the brow, but the sides I dunno. If I cut them off suddenly it looks weird. If I let them fade out to the side it looks weird.

 

I use my finger or a qtip/smudgey sponge brush/whatever to squish a bit downward

 

Ok. I take it if I'm careful I can manage that without blurring the whole thing?

 

Yep! It helps to do a tiny line first, smudge that, then draw over it.

 

i sometimes apply it in a hard border on the lid only, which i can do because of my eye & lid shape, but yesterdays and todays messing around went a bit further
i'd say, eye socket is a good border.

paging @IvyLB because they know a lot about that kinda thing

 

D'oh! Of course!

 

okay this is entirely up to preferance and I can attempt to explain in words but if I make no sense feel free to tell me and I'll go and make info-pics.
basically there are a few shapes you can go for feathering your eyeshadow out but mostly you just kinda blend blend blend the hell out of the edge until it's nice and soft. That's the most important part.
now you ahve three different options: soft upwards blend, sharp edge + upwards blend, downwards blend.
soft upwards bleend you'd softly blend out whatever color you put in the outer c (that is the part where the edge of your eye and the crease are nearest to eachother, the area kinda has the shape of a c and you usually put a darker eyeshadow shade in a c shape there if you want to do that) and blend it in a soft rounded shape towards your temple area. Don't apply more, just smoke out what's there.
with the sharp edge you do exactly the same (this look is almost always worn with cat-eyeliner btw), except you either beforehand set a line with tape to stay clean or later clean up the line with concealer. It's common in a lot of instagram glamour selfies.

mark zapanta is really good with this kinda style. ~8:24 starts how he applies eyeliner.
blending downwards requires you to put eyeshadow on your lower lid and is hugely dependant on faceshape in how good or horrible it will look. I like the look because it draws attention to my cheeksbones, opens up my eyes and gives me a kinda forlorn lost baby animal/alien look.
you basically take the eyeshadow you put on the outer third of your lower lid and smoke it out and downwards towards your cheekbones. (protip you can do this with a rouge instead of an eyeshadow to blend into a really high-cheek doll-like blush application once you got a handle on things but um that's kinda advanced stuff and I don't wanna frighten you)
contouring is hard shit but drag queens on youtube are your friend. Mark Zapanta is good at explaining and showing stuff if you can deal with how rambly he gets. Most of the time, contouring is basic theory of optic illusion. You put darker color on what you want lessened/receded and lighter on what you want to draw attention to/heighten.
with eyeliner it helps to dot and then connect to a line. You can line your waterline with pencil eyeliner but don't stab your eye out. Do not try that with liquid eyeliner, shit burns. Press tight against the lashline and take your time you can always wipe it off again or clean wings up with concealer.
Uh. Don't feel like you need to do everything at once? Blend the shit out of all your eyeshadow.
Unless your eyes stand super far apart your best bet is putting the lighter color(s) on the inner corners of your eye and the darker on the outer corner. with three colors you go a) lightest shade on inner corner and browbone, b) middle color on the center of the lid, c) darkest color in the crease and outer c
Powder your foundation, and hairspray your entire face, I am not kidding you. It will make your makeup last better.

If you want to do stuff that gets more complicated, seek out makeup youtubers and start binge-watchign their entire archives. Learning techniques can be done two ways: watch how its done or just try it out yourself.
I learned makeup by my mom showing me stuff (she used to sell stuff and also has a bridal makeup diploma yo), then watching other people and just plain trying stuff out.
Don't be afraid to draw on your face for funsies when you have time and just try stuff out. The easiest way to learn by far is just coming up with ways it's comfy for yourself.

Also y'all hating liquid eyeliner is sad it doesn't deserve that :( it's way easier to get sharp lines than with gel or pencil bluh.

 

Hey @IvyLB did you see the tumblr post that was a girl who screwed up with liquid eyeliner, got it in her eyes, took a picture, and then found a bunch of people reblogging it like it was super meaningful?

 

no oh my god I didn't but now I'm cringe laughing good god liquid eyeliner hurts so badly if you accidently stab yourself or it drops on your eyeball oh noooooooo
*has stabbed themselves with eyeliners and brushes in the eyeball all trhroughout their makeup career.*
*swears up and down that liquid eyeliner hurts worse than silicone mascara wands*

 

It's the best/worst omg I felt so bad

 

Also I should probably note that I mostly only get away with how i apply makeup because i know my way about colors + quality and absolutely do not care if I look like an outlandish cray person. So you might wanna take all advice from me with a grain of salt, I am known to wear green feather lashes for no reason other than 'yolo i didn't need to see today anyway'
(I can't wear glasses AND falsies and sometimes an enby has to prioritize and sometimes flasies win against the ability to see in HD)

 

I wear blue lipsticks, so yeah.

 

yeah okay but blue lipstick is life

 

yassssssssssssssssss