Alien Brightside's Fashion Journey: August 2012

I like makeup. I think makeup is fun. With makeup I can make myself look like anything I want. Right makeup plus right clothes are important to me.

It took years and years of trial and error to know what looks good on my face and what makes me look like a walking mistake. Looking back I’ve had some pretty disastrous makeup moments that I have comprised into my top 5 makeup regrets.

1. Glitter eye shadow makes me look like a drag queen in a carnival. When I was in junior high, I thought it was hot and I looked like a pop star. Fortunately, cell phone didn’t have camera back then.

if you cannot make this, glitter eye shadow is not a choice.

2. Chapped lips aren’t cool. I used to spend 30 minutes to draw eyebrows, 20 to apply eyeliners, and 5 for moisturizer. So I didn’t have time to care about my lips. And I didn’t like my lips back then. I thought they were NOT sexy because they were thick but not shaped like Angelina Jolie’s. I didn’t even apply lip balm.

chapped vs. healthy lips.

3. Eye makeup base is incredibly important. Few years back, I didn't applied smoky eyes everyday (Yes, now I have them every single day) so I didn't really care about eye makeup base. Then one hot sunny day, I felt itchy in my eyelids. When I looked in the mirror, my eyelids were like soil after hurricane strikes. Awful.

perfect eye makeup needs eye makeup base.

4. Always get the right bronzer for your skin. I have a bright skin tone, my face and my hands have the (pretty much) same tone. I know so many girls are trying (too) hard to get what I have. Sometimes I just want to look more tan because tan is sexy (but maybe not for some people). And after watched Resident Evil, I finally bought my first bronzer.

First mistake here, I bought a bronzer with 3 levels darker than my natural skin tone. My hands looked paler than my face (weird #1). Second, I thought bronzer can replace moisturizer (Now I realize how stupid I was). I just applied it (large amount) with my bare hands and didn’t really blend it. It was awful and too fake. I was an Asian girl with pale hands and blotchy face (weird #2). Third, I didn’t apply powder at all. I think everybody can see the bronzer particles from miles away (weird #3).

without bronzer, and with the right bronzer.

Last but not least...

5. Super thin eyebrows with the color much lighter than your natural hair is NOT hot. In the first year I applied eyebrows, all I could do was draw a thin line with sharp arch using light brown eyebrows pencil. My mistake #1 : I thought if I use light brown color, it wouldn’t be so obvious that I applied them. The right thing is chose 1 tone darker than your natural hair color if you're blonde. If you're brunette choose 1 tone lighter. Mistake #2 : Just draw a line without feathery strokes (and sometimes not in the same direction as hair growth) made my eyebrows too fake. Feathery strokes seems hard to make, but trust me it's fun and works like stress reliever. Mistake #3 : I didn’t softened and blended pointy edges and it added more years to my face. Mistake #4 : I only applied super short tail. Some people (Yes, Rooney Mara!) looks super cool with short tail eyebrows, but not me. I looked like an evil witch in horror movies. Lesson from 4 mistakes : finding the perfect eyebrows for your face and drawing eyebrows isn’t easy. Experiment and more practice, it’s not too late to find the best.