Makeup Advice?

[Heather Shay]

I had to look up the word 

1. a person who is knowledgeable about the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.

    
2. 2.

   NORTH AMERICAN

   a beautician.

    

   Can't wait to hear your updates - as I start to learn makeup I've made so many dumb dumb dumb mistakes and look like a crown instead of a woman that I want to look like ?

[SaraAW]

While I've had a good skin care routine for quite some time, I am still so very inexperienced with makeup, so I know the feelings of frustration. It is only recently I have been able to paint my nails without making a total mess of them. It just takes practice and having some coaching along the way doesn't hurt. 

 

As soon as the pandemic is over, my sister will be doing a full makeover for me. Until then we've been chatting and she has started to give me tips and tricks. Might try and do a video chat this weekend where she can walk me through some things with a visual.

[Heather Shay]

can't wait - I need ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the help I can get. My wife who has fibro is going for her bi-weekly chiro and massage therapy today and I plan to experiement again...wish me luck...

[SaraAW]

Happy experimenting!!  

[Tori M]

My face care routine for 17 years is very simple and old-fashioned (and inexpensive, too).  I tried lots of products but chemicals dry out my somewhat sensitive skin and can give it a red, irritated look.  Exfoliation .... a mild 30 second scrub with a plain old cheap, rough, cotton (not "plushy soft" like most people use today) washcloth, twice a day.  The slight roughness gently removes dead skin cells without irritating/damaging good tissue like a luffa.  Moisturizer.... Dove soap on that warm (not hot) washcloth, twice a day, every day.  Dove adds moisturizer at the best possible moment, when the pores are super clean and open.  Most soaps are drying/dehydrating.  There's a reason Dove is found in the Beauty isle with the cosmetics.  Yes, I swear by it just like our mother's and grandmothers did.  I've actually used nothing else since I was a child unless I needed a strong soap on my dirty hands.

 

Once or twice a week, I do a mild (nothing fancy) mud mask (actually have gotten lazy on this part in the past year and the pores on my nose show it){putting mud mask on my shopping list}.  This was my mother's and aunt's routine and their skin still looks 10 years younger than they are.  Mine looks 10 years younger than I am (and I have health issues).  My 54 year old face is as soft as any AFAB and I haven't taken hormones in over 7 years. For whole body moisturizer, good old-fashioned mineral oil on wet skin.  Actually, I have recently discovered Monoi oil; it absorbs quicker.  Recently, I read a 40 year dermatologist state that if your moisturizer isn't a little bit oily, it's not doing anything for you and that is my experience, too.

 

Forgive me for preaching, but keep in mind that the cosmetics industry has perhaps the highest profit margin of any and every maker/vendor wants a piece of it to empty your pocketbook.  Think about this.... women had beautiful, soft skin 50, 100, 500 years ago and they didn't have any of the over-hyped, over-priced chemical crap produced today. 

[Heather Shay]

Wise sage.... I've never tried a mud mask but I will put it on my list. I never did a very good job as a man cleaning my face and didn't shave much as I am finding now that I do shave every day and epilate (was every other day but I am burning areas on my face and I'm going to back off ) and moisturizing is a whole new territory for me. I bought some sensitine skin cleaner and moisturizer and I like the idea of less is more and that is the approach I want to take with make up as my attempts over the years in hiding was more slutty than anything else. 

 

Luckily over the years doctors and many people tell me I look at least 10 years younger than my biological age - so that is a plus and if I can keep up with proper skin care perhaps I can shave off (pun intended) another 5 years. 

 

I am also somewhat lucky in that I never was able to growing a lot of hair so that won't be much of a problem. I used to tell guys who had thick beards that I'd been growing mine since college and one of these days it might actually fill in because mine was always think and kept neatly trimmed. Now I want to keep it neatly GONE.

 

[Tori M]

I've been fortunate like that, too, Shay.  Never grew a speck of chest hair, light to medium hair on my legs, but (for some reason) dark hair on my arms that is rarely seen on a lady.  The only unusual thing I have to do now is shave/trim my arms (I use electric clippers to trim it to avoid the rough stubble after a shave) and still a little bit of facial plucking.  I tried bleach and Nair on my arms but it's so easy to burn the skin with that stuff.  When I did let my facial hair grow it was always soft, not course like most men.  I've always passionately hated unwanted hair, my girly mind screaming "that's not supposed to be here!"  The new thing in my now older life is stray hairs in weird places like my ears or on top of my nose! lol

 

Mud makes the skin feel soooo clean!  Nothing else like it.  I am definitely a less is more kinda gal... a strong believer in the KISS principle.

[Heather Shay]

Nair.... when I was hiding and shaving legs I tried Nair and even though I have poor sense of smell (my nose is like idiot lights on a car - if I sense it you're not going to be in trouble you ARE in trouble) I don't even get much from the smell of skunks nearby. When I asked my dermatologist (I have rosesea) I asked him...if you can't see - you are blind....if you can't hear - you are deaf... if you can't speak - you are mute, what is it when you cannot smell things very well... he said..... lucky... I laughed but having that problem doesn't allow me to enjoy foods most of the time... on the plus side I eat to live and not live to eat so weight hasn't been a problem - I was anorexic at one point and ran like a marathon a DAY.... thank god I stopped doing that - I was down to 98 pounds and that is not attractive on any gender.