Beauty & Fashion Tips
Please read my thoughts on transitioning and passing here. The biggest thing to remember is that you define what is beautiful. The term beautiful is broad and complex. No one definition of beauty is right or better. You are beautiful. Trans is beautiful.
Trans Flag T-Shirt
Body Euphoria
Shoulder Euphoria
At the beginning of my transition, I had a lot of dysphoria about my shoulders, because they're broader than the average woman and I felt like they made me look more masculine. In order to combat this, I'm selective with what types of clothing I choose to wear. I try to balance my lower body with volume, soften the shoulder area, and trick the eye into looking elsewhere:
-Lower cut necklines create an illusion making your shoulders appear narrower. I wear V-necks, scoops, haltered tops, etc (This also distracts the eyes from staring at your shoulders and will draw more attention to your cleavage)
-Thicker strapped tank tops are better than thinner.
-Avoid necklines that elongate the shoulders. I avoid both sleeves off-the-shoulders, spaghetti straps, square or strapless necklines.
-Wearing darker colored tops and lighter colored bottom creates an illusion. Black has a slimming effect, therefore will make your shoulders appear smaller. White makes your lower body heavier and may even make your hips appear wider.
-Skirts that flair or are pleated will give your body more of an hour glass figure and balance out the width of your shoulders.
-Along the same lines, wear patterned or embellished bottoms to draw attention away from your shoulders. (I avoid the opposite)
-Diagonal cut sleeves soften the shoulders whereas puffy or horizontally cut sleeves will broaden your shoulders.
-Avoid shoulder pads! These make your shoulders look broader and draw attention straight to them.
-Lastly, hair also helps to hide or distract from your shoulders. Longer hair will cover your shoulders where as shorter, voluminous hair will balance out your shoulders.
Here are some tips and tricks to achieve cleavage even if you are flatter chested like me! Cleavage gives me so much gender euphoria. I use: pads, contouring, push up bras, and silicone cutlets to help achieve the appearance of fuller breasts. I’m so excited to have breast augmentation on September 1st, 2020! One day soon I won’t have to do any of this, and i can’t even explain how good it
Face Euphoria
Your face is what people tend to notice first. It's how people identify you and remember you. While surgery is great for some people, it's not affordable for many. Instead, here's what I have done to help feminize my face.
-Growing out my hair was a huge step. I had once sported the Bieber haircut, I loved the length but the style quickly grew old and overdone. This was the longest I had my hair before transitioning. I rocked a pixy the summer I came out as trans. I was clocked a lot as I was discovering how to present myself in public. After a few months of growing my hair out to almost my jawline, I decided to get extensions. They immediately made me look more feminine. It hid my shoulders and covered my receding hairline. It also distracted people from my wide jaw and prominent brow bone.
-Because I was assigned male at birth (amab) I grew facial hair that made me dysphoric. For a while I used a thick silicone-based primer to smooth out texture (such as MAC's pore refiner stick), color correcting concealer, and full coverage foundation to cover it. I have since had permanent hair removal (covered in the transition tab).
-Lastly contouring and "drag makeup" helped feminize my face and made me feel more confident. Darkening the corners of your face and the shallow parts of your cheek makes a huge difference. I contour my forehead, cheekbones, nose, adams' apple, and jaw line. I also highlight the highest points of my face (forehead, apples of the cheek, top of nose, and chin.
-Makeup is a very euphoric art form for me and has also become my job. Below I've included a few full face tutorials from my youtube channel and TikTok.
Here’s one of my favorite quick and easy makeup looks. I dive deep into each step along the way to help feminize the face in easy and quick ways with fairly minimal steps and products.
Events
This event was so enjoyable. I was able to make people feel beautiful and share my story! I left so inspired and so uplifted. It’s important to have safe spaces where trans and gender non conforming folks can come together and build each other up. Thank you everyone who made it possible and everyone who came!! My heart is so full. Email me to book me for a makeup class!
* after the camera died I set Rose’s face with mineralize skinfinish natural in light with a 140 brush This is a very smooth, light weight powder with a natural satin finish. Next I used harmony blush to contour her cheekbones. To find this I felt for the hollow in her cheeks. Think of the placement as an imaginary line from the corner of the mouth to the center of the ear. It should be darkest toward the ear and the bottom of the line. Blend it up using circular motions. Bring the color about 2/3s over toward the mouth (but not all the way). I also deepened around her forehead and jawline in a similar fashion. Now I added very little sweet enough mineralize blush to the apples of her cheeks. Then I used hyper real glow palette in flash and awe to highlight her cheeks and contrast with the matte darkness to further emphasize the contoured effect. I sprayed my brush with fix + to amplify the glow. I placed the highlighter just on top of the darker powder on her cheeks and above her brows and the bridge of her nose. For Rose’s lips I primed with prime and prime lip base. I swatched every viva glam lipstick for her to choose in front of the class. Viva glam is my favorite part about M•A•Ca business Plan, because 100% of the price of every lipstick goes to the M•A•C AIDS program. Rose chose viva glam II lipstick, a cool toned nude, so I lined her lips with whirl lip liner. To finish the look I sprayed Rose with more fix +.
I am so proud my job supported this class. We were able to offer a complimentary makeup class to the trans and gender non-conforming community of Seattle. The trans community is the most marginalized—especially those who are people of color. Makeup is about more than just beauty, especially for my community. At the beginning of my transition, I was completely overwhelmed by the makeup world. So I started with MAC and became obsessed. Presenting femininely in public is important for my safety. Makeup helps me blend into society easier. Often—especially early in my transition—when not wearing makeup, I’ll be misgendered or harassed because I don’t fit into society’s expectation of what it means to be a woman. Makeup helps myself and other trans feminine people blend into society. Makeup actually can mean safety for us. Trans people are four times more likely than the general population to live in extreme poverty (Nation Center for Transgender Equality). This makes access to makeup and lessons extreme difficult, as many need to prioritize food, water, and shelter first. The combination of social stigma, institutional discrimination, and economic hardships creates major barriers for trans folks to receive the care they need. I hope classes like this will become more regular. Nordstrom MAC counters always offer complimentary makeovers/lessons. My class helped bring folks in who needed help. Thank you for the support and resources to make this dream of mine come true. I hope all MAC locations are able to make something like this happen.