gettin my face did

getting rid of those sleepy eye shadows

I must say I don’t know if I could have picked an activity father out of my comfort zone than learning how to do male TV makeup. If that doesn’t catch your attention I don’t know what will! It all started when I begrudgingly agreed to be a makeup model so my friend could learn how to put make up on a male for her makeup 101 class. I debated back and forth in my mind when I learned of this assignment. Do I really want to put this kind of thing on the Internet? I mean as Dr. Burton says: the stuff you put on the Internet doesn’t ever go away! Well in the end I decided I would be open minded and learn something new. I kept telling myself I am an adventurous guy always looking for new experiences.

At first I was very apprehensive; I was just there to help out a friend. It was an in and out job.  Then I open my mind I watched as she first mixed the foundation to match my skin tone.  At first I just watched as she struggled, first adding too much brown, then too much orange and then I helped her out. I noticed it was a lot like mixing paint for the countless art classes I have taken over the years. After we finally got the right color foundation we went to work applying it.  I learned about what it does as we applied it. Foundation evens your skin tone and is a base for the other makeup. Years of art came in handy when I pointed out the lines where the foundation stopped and when my natural skin started or spots we missed etc. We smoothed them out paying close attention to smooth the makeup all the way to the hair line to disguise the lines.

Then came the final touches of “man rouge” or blush for guys. Apparently it finalizes the whole process and adds just the right amount of color and definition to your face so it doesn’t look matte and flat. I learned to start very slowly because there is no going back, once you add too much you can’t go back. Another thing is that for guys especially the point of makeup is to not tell its there and just to make you look better overall. She told me normally girls would where mascara on their eyelashes and eyeliner around their eyelids but guys don’t need them so we were done!

I looked in the mirror at the finished me. I was shocked to see the difference. I looked better but in a very unnatural way. I quickly washed it all off, I decided I definitely liked myself just the way I am. I learned a lot about a very new world to me but I must say that was a one-time thing. 

The main thing I take away from this experience is especially when it comes to folk knowledge you must go out of your comfort zones and experience new things otherwise you will be stuck with the same  types of knowledge. I really liked learning things that I couldn’t have learned (or wouldn’t want to learn) from a textbook. I know I would not have picked up a book to learn this. There is something to be said about physically being there and watching and learning. 

All that being said I did my part, gave it a chance but as for this area of knowledge I am done. Unless I become a movie star makeup is never touching my face again.  Good thing there are plenty of other random skills to be acquired in this wonderful world we live in.