You may wonder why I blog about makeup every Friday instead of talking about more dance stuff. Well, besides the fact that reviewing cosmetics gives me a built-in excuse to always buy new things that interest me, I really feel strongly about the importance of makeup to complete a dancer’s look.
When I first started dancing, I knew nothing about makeup. I never wore it. The first time I bought lipstick — in my entire life, ever — was when I needed it for my first bellydance recital. I was in my mid-20s. I had been wearing some eye makeup before then, but I was really bad at applying it. I kept the packages from the first makeup I purchased, because they told me what order to apply things in. I had one blush, but I never really wore it because I thought it would look unnatural on me because I was so pale. When I did wear it, I put it below my cheek bones because again, I had no idea what I was doing and I didn’t realize that there were tutorials on YouTube to tell me all of this stuff.
Over time, I got a little more comfortable with makeup and came to enjoy matching my eye shadow to my costume. Then I took some makeup workshops and I learned how to apply things properly. I even had a private makeup lesson where my teacher did one half of my face and I tried to copy what she did on the other side. I finally knew how to do a smoky eye! The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn, and the more I started to experiment because I was more comfortable with the products I owned. I stumbled into reviewing things accidentally, after a friend showed up to an event with glitter mascara and I was like, man, I should try that too, and Mahin said hey, if you post a review on your blog after you test it, I’ll share it in the Daily Bellydance Quickies. It sort of snowballed after that.
So anyway, I was bored last night and I figured it was a good excuse to break out some new products and work on my look for Tribal Fest. I’ll be performing as a faerie and I wanted a really otherworldly look. Especially for the Tribal Fest stage, a little earthy eye shadow and brown lipstick isn’t going to cut it. I need to be larger than life, and I need to be able to stand up to bright lights and being viewed from a distance and up close. And look good in pictures and video. No pressure! I’d been collecting photos on Pinterest to inspire my general look, and I’d picked up a few new products to try, including a super-dark blush. I’d just been hesitating to put it all together because it was going to be different from anything I’d done before. But the deadline is looming so it was time to experiment.
The nice thing about just playing with makeup is that I didn’t have to stress about it. I wasn’t getting ready for a gig, so if I didn’t like how a product looked, or my contouring was a little uneven, it didn’t matter because I was just testing things. So I had fun and applied products with abandon, experimenting with new things and different combinations. And as you can see from the “After” picture at the top of the post, I got some good results. I need to play some more before TF and work on doing something a little different with my eyes, but I’m pretty happy with what I came up with last night. And while I was at it I took individual pictures of new things, as part of my plan to start building up a buffer of beauty blogging posts so I don’t miss updates when I’m busy/on vacation. Stay tuned!
Oh yeah? The point of all of this? Makeup is important. If you’re a dancer, you should take the time to learn how to apply it, and master different looks for different costumes, styles of dance, and moods. One of my friends summed it up really well last night when she said “I’ve seen you with your dance make-up on, and the transformation is incredible! You’re very pretty anyway, but you look so mysterious with the dance make-up.” When done right, cosmetics transform us from “AJ, the girl who sits at her computer writing things for most of the day” to “Sophia Ravenna, femme fatale, woodlands creature, beauty from a far-off land.” It completes the image!