Today, most of us feel makeup is a MUST when creating the illusion. Even those who identify as trans men wear makeup when performing. Hell, even bio boy performers wear makeup when on stage.
Why then are there STILL new kings who fight this aspect tooth and nail? “Men don’t wear makeup, why should I?” or “I’m already pretty dark, I don’t need makeup.” There are so many excuses thrown out there, it’s ridiculous. What baffles me are the kings who use no or barely any facial hair, AND no makeup. Dude… you don’t look like a dude. There’s a big difference between looking like a butch lesbian and a man. The facial structure is different; men are angles while women tend to be rounder and softer.
And so it is with this that I bring you my next chapter in Pieces of the Illusion… Makeup!
Use it.
The needed essentials:
Foundation – look for something slightly darker than your natural skin tone
Eyeliner – I’m a fan of the Revlon Color Stay stuff, just be prepared to have eyeliner for a day or so after a show, and generally, even if you’re a tow head, get black, not brown
Eyebrow pencil – find something that doesn’t look ridiculous. I’m a readhead, I use a brownish one
A darker brown eye shadow – this can be used for shading, just make sure it’s matte, and no sparkly
Makeup brushes – you can find a pack of 10 or so different brushes at Walmart for $5
Makeup sponges – you can find the basic ones in a pack, they come in triangles, rectangles and sometimes circles
With just the tools above you can start to work on the contouring and shading needed to really boost the illusion.
Start with the foundation and make sure it spreads evenly. I always try to get down my neck and even some of the back of my neck, only because otherwise there is such a huge difference in colour. We’ve all seen those women with a harsh line under their chin where their foundation ends… don’t be that person! Blend it in as best you can using a makeup sponge. Make sure you do this before you put your facial hair on!
My next step is always my facial hair, because the style of facial helps me decide where and how I need to shade.
Next, darken and thicken your eyebrows, and line your eyes. Most men don’t have thin brows, unless they’re going for a certain look. They don’t need to be over the top, but they need to look thicker and more dense than your natural eyebrows. Again, I don’t care if you’ve got black eyebrows or practically clear eyebrows, like mine, you need to darken them. They get lost in the stage lights. Mascara is optional. I have suuuuuuper long eyelashes and when I darken them it makes me look ridiculously feminine, so it doesn’t help the illusion.
Now with the shading and contouring, remember men are all about angles. Their jaw line is sharper, their brows are more prominent and their cheek bones are more angular. There are ways of helping create that look with shading. Again, this is just the basics. Obviously there are more complicated methods, but a lot of it is trial and error, and playing with makeup. Giving the jaw line a more chiseled look is relatively simply. You want to start at the jaw joint and basically draw a line with the dark eye shadow down and across, following the jaw bone, but slightly under it. Blend it downwards, towards the neck. You want to create the look of a shadow, subtle but still noticeable. To create the illusion of an Adams apple, take the dark shadow and draw two lines down on either side of your oesophagus. (Tilting your head back slightly will give you a better idea of where to make the lines.) Blend these outwards, creating a lighter space in the center of the throat. That should pretty much take care of the jaw/neckline.
Now for the face. You’ve darkened your brows, lined your eyes, etc. Now to make those eyes stand out. Using a smaller brush, you’ll want to use your darker shadow and shade the sides of your nose up to your eyelid, under your eyebrow. Think of a T, split in half. You don’t want to look like you’ve been punched in the eye, so I wouldn’t use a ton on the lid itself, but more directly under the eyebrow. Make sure to blend this in too. Blending is the key to all of this! Now if you happen to have a lighter powder, or your partner has one that they don’t mind you borrowing, you can use a little light or white powder above the eyebrows. Make sure this gets blended in WELL, or you could look like you have two white stripes crawling across your face. Putting the lighter powder above your eyebrows, in contrast to the dark under them, will make your brow “pop” on stage, giving it a more pronounced look. You can create the look of angular cheekbones by using a similar method to apply rouge, except instead of applying the makeup with a larger brush on the whole cheek, you’ll want to take a smaller brush and draw a darker line down along the cheekbone. Once blended in this should be the finishing touch to give your face the angles it needs to be more masculine in appearance.
I reiterate once more that these are just the basics. Once you get the hang of the basics, then you can start experimenting with stipple and more elaborate makeup techniques, as well as investing in some good stage makeup, like Kryolan, Mehron or Ben Nye.
Just like anything, don’t half-ass your makeup, or facial hair. I consider facial hair to be a part of the makeup, and to half-ass it just makes you look like you don’t care. Take pride in what you do. If you’re getting into drag and getting ready to perform and you look in the mirror and you don’t look any different except for maybe some tiny bit of facial hair on your chin, maybe you need to reevaluate your methods. We are all constantly learning and growing, experimenting is key, as is trying something new, even if it’s just new to you. The thing is to realize when you need to change something, and to put on your big boi knickers and change it.