Alex Heberling

I’ve never been much into makeup.  At least, not on a daily basis.  There are several personal-philosophy reasons behind it, but the biggest actual reason is because of this:

I’m incredibly freckly.

I don’t know if it’s the large percentage of Irish blood in me, but for whatever reason, I’m completely speckled.  My face, my arms, pretty much everywhere.  I’ve even got a freckle on my ear.

The problem with conventional makeup is that a lot of the techniques are designed for women with a relatively even skin tone, and few freckles.  My freckles are so ingrained in the way the people around me perceive me that if I attempt to cover them up with regular foundation, it’s extremely noticeable and fake-looking, like I fell face-first into pancake mix.

Since I’m now a college-degree holding young woman, and I’ll be searching for a well-paying job very soon, I’ve been taking baby steps towards making my outer appearance more adult and mature.  I’ve started updating my wardrobe, for example.  The goal is not to adhere to conformist beauty standards, since hell– anyone who knows me knows I don’t put up with that shit.  The goal is to look mature and professional while still expressing my personality.

But the problem that I face can be experienced if you google “makeup tips for freckles.”  Apart from the first result (which actually has an excellent tip in it) most of the sites you’ll find are tips on how to minimize and cover up freckles, usually in the case that a woman has only a few pesky freckles, in which case they wouldn’t look freakishly pancake-faced if they did cover them.

However, that first article does have an excellent solution for women like me: a sheer foundation.  Foundation has really been my only problem with makeup, as I wear eye makeup quite often for special occasions, and wish I could just apply my eyeshadow-slinging skills to the rest of my face.

My sister was unknowingly fooled by the e.l.f. buyout email rumor, which she told me about.  I recently made a large purchase of e.l.f. makeup, which I recieved in the mail the week of Christmas.  I actually already owned a couple of e.l.f. products (an eyeshadow compact and a couple brushes) and I figure if I’m going to experiment with makeup I might as well do it in a frugal fashion.

My new makeup is a smattering of things for all over, and I significantly added to my lipcolor selection and face-stuff, which before was represented by a stick of concealer, some bronzer, and two tubes of lipcolor.  (One in a natural tone, one in amuted magenta-red.) I’m all about eye makeup, since that’s what I’ve always paid most attention to, so I’ve also got a metric ton of new colors of eyeshadow and eyeliner.  (I like to have options.)

The key ingredient in the mix is a tube of sheer foundation with SPF 15.  I noticed a difference right away the first time I applied it, since my skin tone was much more even, but my freckles were still distinct.

I’ve only had a couple days to play with my new makeup, so I’m interested in the new things I’ll be able to do.  It got me thinking about how I always see the teenagers at anime conventions with their BLACK BLACK BLACK eye makeup.  Now I’ll admit I went through the gothy phase myself in high school… (Okay, a litte bit of college, too…)  It got me thinking about how it could probably benefit young women of otaku culture to learn about classy makeup for women of unconventional beaty.

The one thing I lament seeing women do is the kohl-rimmed eyes.  I think that not everybody understands that that look doesn’t look good on everybody.  I think that one’s makeup should be suited to their natural colors and lines, and believe me, once I got out of that gothy phase and realized that I look much better in, say, a muted, jade-green eyeliner, it was a total epiphany.  That’s not to say I don’t ever wear black eyeliner any more, because it really depends on the colors I’ve put on the rest of my face and whatnot, but the way I apply my makeup now has also changed drastically.

I’ve got through a couple phases over the years in which I’ve worn makeup on a regular basis.  The two most recent periods come to mind immediately…  The first was in my second year of college, the first time I was sort of discovering my body’s natural curves and how to dress myself in things other than blocky t-shirts and hoodies.  The second was about two years ago, when I was working at Barnes & Noble.  I really feel like this stage in my life is  lot like those other two;  I’m starting to realize that the way I present myself needs to improve, and thus I’m going to try to make the time in my normal routines to do so.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this new makeup thing works out.  As I mentioned before, I’m interested in possibly putting together information for geeky girls to get the most out of makeup; that is, finding ways to use makeup to enhance their natural beauty instead of covering it up and conforming to societal norms.  I’m about as geeky as a girl can get, and I don’t consider myself to be obsessed with my self-image, so I think that if it comes from someone like me, geeky girls will be more receptive to what I have to say.

That’s provided that I actually come up with some good tips.  I hope I can.