Ninja Beauty Secrets, Part 17: Two Looks Are Better Than One

This month we will look at developing both a glamorous and a natural look concurrently. The two are more alike than you may think, but there are caveats to consider.

For various reasons, a tgirl will perfect a singular look, choosing glamorous or natural, but rarely both. There are reasons for choosing one look over another and the goal of this article is to help you understand which look is most appropriate for a certain situation and to encourage you to develop both simultaneously.

The Glamorous Look

The glamorous look appeals to the part-time crossdresser who seeks to use the glamorous look to hide her masculine features. It may also serve to mask a person from revealing who she is to people she might know, such as coworkers, family, and friends. The glamorous look is also useful to those tgirls who don’t have the physical features to successfully do a natural look. The glamorous look is most accepted in formal black tie party events, the most notorious being The Night of a Thousand Gowns, but smaller venues, such as the gala dinners held at transgender conventions are also good choices.

The glamorous look with dark makeup colors is so obvious in the daytime that it should never ever EVER be worn. It just draws too much attention. Many closeted crossdressers and neophyte transsexuals make the mistake of wearing glamorous makeup outside of evening activities. They often wonder why they can’t pass and nobody, not even an experienced person, can convince these tgirls not to wear glamor makeup during the day.

The glamorous look can be tempered so it will look appropriate for non-formal dinners, but care needs to be taken as some tgirls get used to a routine and keep putting on the same face every time they go out, no matter where they go or what the circumstance. They might think they’ve perfected the glamorous look, but what they really perfected is a stagnant look.

Omit dark lipstick and dark lip gloss in all but formal dinners, gala events, and parties in which girls are supposed to look a bit over the top. I always tell tgirls that they can be who or what they want to be at my Monday Night Tgirls parties, but somehow many of them carry this look over to our daytime brunches. You can have a tempered version of the glamorous look for the daytime by simply replacing dark colored lipsticks and lip glosses with the right shade of pink as well as lightening the application of eyeshadow or using lighter shades. These two pieces of advice will likely halve the number of negative stares you might get otherwise.

The Natural Look

The natural look appeals to the full-time transsexual who braves the sometimes rigorous trials and tribulations of everyday life. Tgirls who are completely passable have little to no problems blending in, but for the other 99.9%, the world can be a cold, cruel place filled with negativity, especially from those who are intolerant towards transgender people. Non-feminine features or flaws can immediately be seen in daylight so a tgirl’s choice of wearing no makeup is never wise.

Obvious masculine flaws should not be characteristic of a transgender face, but it often is and people unfamiliar with transgender women can often tell the difference between a female face and a transgender female face. I often advise tgirls to try to wear natural makeup whenever possible, but this advice assumes you already have characteristically feminine facial features, which most tgirls naturally do not. In such cases, FFS, or feminine facial surgery, to feminize the face is required before trying to achieve a good natural look.

A heavy brow bone, a big nose, a strong jawline, and bad teeth are the most obvious masculine facial features. The only way to correct a heavy brow bone is a procedure called orbital rim contouring, otherwise known as a brow bone shave. Not all genetic males have heavy brow bones, but many do and it needs to be corrected in order to have a truly feminine face. Hiding the problem with bangs is just a temporary solution. Women look like women in a variety of ways, in a variety of hair styles, so if you want to be a bang goddess for the rest of your life, that’s fine, but sooner or later whatever you do may call for a hair style that doesn’t have bangs. A pool party or the beach is the surest way for most any transsexual to fail the passability test, if not because of the body, then because of the face.

A big nose can really alter people’s perceptions of you because the nose is basically positioned in the center of the face. As we age, our nose usually droops and elongates making it look larger. For most transsexuals, rhinoplasty will probably change your life.

A strong jawline is not something that strangers fixate on when they first meet someone. This is not to say that it’s not important. I’ve seen many genetic women with strong jawlines so having one won’t destroy your passability. A heavy browbone and big nose are much bigger problems and must be corrected if there is any hope of being full-time or completely passable.

Bad teeth is one of my biggest peeves. Bad teeth combined with bad breath are just unforgivable. You will thank me for saying this, but if you have bad teeth, your greatest investment in your life is to get your teeth fixed and whitened. It may cost most of your life savings to do this, but in the end it will be worth it. Trust me on this. I wouldn’t be called a Super Cutie and be treated to the best restaurants if I had bad teeth. If you are transitioning, then having great-looking teeth should be your biggest priority. A great smile really goes a long way in your passability. In fact, a great smile goes a long way in improving your overall beauty whether you choose to remain a man or live life as a woman. I just revealed to you the biggest secret in the universe, so do with it as you please.

Blemish-free skin and a full head of well-managed hair are also important. There are so many things that can go wrong with a look and it is important that you be mindful of everything that can go wrong so you can avoid the mistakes that others have made and have the confidence to walk around in the day or night as a passable woman.

Assuming that masculine features have been minimized, you can focus on creating a good natural look. A natural look does not mean wearing no makeup. It means wearing makeup that makes you look like you have just enough makeup on. Rather than masking your flaws, natural makeup emphasizes your features. Skip lining your eyebrows directly. In fact, I would avoid defining the eyebrows at all for a natural look. If you must have eyebrows, use eyeshadow that matches your eyebrows.

Always line your eyes, no matter if you are going for natural or glamorous looks. A natural eye line is thinner than a glamorous eye line. Practice what I’ve said in my previous articles or purchase my makeover books to learn more. Use about half the amount of blush and eyeshadow for your natural look as you do for your glamorous look. Avoid dark lipstick as we said before in your natural look. Choose a translucent face powder with a matte finish, such as Estee Lauder Lucidity. Choose a foundation with a matte finish, such as Prescriptives Virtual Matte. Find a shade in each that matches your skin tone exactly. Use concealer to lessen the look of dark circles under your eyes.

If you think about why you need more makeup for a glamorous look than a natural look, consider an explanation from photography. At night where you will most likely wear glamorous looks, lights are dim, especially in restaurants, bars, and clubs, and a flash is used to add artificial light when taking pictures. A flash will often drown out your features so a heavier application of makeup is needed to compensate for the flash. Pictures taken during the day with plenty of available sunlight seldom require a flash, except for the occasional fill flash to combat harsh shadows from sunlight that’s too bright.

It’s been an uphill battle for me to convince some of my own friends to change their makeup ways for the better so it will probably be difficult for many of you to accept my makeup philosophy. Many of my friends are convinced that their stagnant looks are the only way they can look good and that’s simply not the case. Everyone can improve and while it’s true that there are limits to how much some of us can improve, I don’t believe that most tgirls ever achieve their limit in their lifetime because they are not open to change and do not want to accept the fact that they can look better.

The first time you’ve ever had a makeover and saw yourself as a woman should have been the start of seeing the potential you have. See if you can build upon your look every time you go out. Try switching it up a little by trying something different to see if it works. A new makeup product or a new technique might be the ticket to something great. Sometimes it might work, sometimes not, but you’ll never know unless you try.

For more ninja beauty secrets, purchase Natural Makeup Techniques or Secrets to an Awesome Makeover from my web site (will open in a new window).

Category: Transgender Body & Soul