Two genders Two Tails

Hey guys,

I hope everyone is doing well? This post should have been done a month ago but I've had loads of stuff going on from the good, bad and the ugly. From boozing it up in Birmingham to hitting it hard in the gym it's really kept me busy, but recently I had a thought and I wondered something: When was the last time I spoke about makeup?

Well, it's been over a year since I did which was back in June 2016 and that was for ‘Makeup Part 3’ Guess what! This isn’t part four! but a makeup special! Yes, this post is about the struggle I where I’ve spent stupid amounts of money to hide my stubble and On this post I will take you through the progress from where the results were pish poor to now where I think I’ve cracked it! Hopefully, this will help others that are struggling with the same issue as me and maybe come up with better ideas to cover up their stubble. Even when covering up the stubble shaving regularly with me doesn't go very well. 

Rash back in Jan and Sparkle wasn't far off

The never-ending quest to hide my shadow!

I think until I get laser I will never be happy with my stubble as I will always find a problem but I feel that we always want to achieve that image of ourselves in our heads to be perfect but as trans, I find this the biggest problem not just for me but I can probably for those with dark hair where you can shave and you will still have the shadow. You can put foundation on you still get the stubble showing which is awful as people can see it. This issue can look even worse when you use a foundation without a concealer as it shows up blue when you look carefully at it… Which gets worse through the day... Well for me it does!

I think I’ve spent almost 2 years trying to figure it out how can I prevent this without having laser hair removal? People would say they use red lipstick which does get covered well apparently by the foundation and hides it but I would think with lipstick being pretty thick and oily would never work well on me.

Shaving A Beard To Only Draw It Back On Again???

Yes, that shave/plucking it away to draw it on again (plucking meaning eye brows mainly) is a massive thing for me and I imagine most trans people when it comes to hiding that evil stubble/shadow only to draw it back on again using concealer.

It’s been a massive thing for years and being the noob at makeup that I was… and I feel still am. So, when I first started to realise that I need help to hide that abomination of bum fluff (stubble) growing on my neck and jaw I knew something had to be done about it and that was using concealer. How hard can it be!

Errr very! It turns out and can cost a lot. It was my first Christmas night out with my work and I had the opportunity to go as female which I’ve never done before, I wasn’t presenting loads back then so time wasn’t on my side to do research so I needed it to really work, from the outfit to the and especially makeup. It was time to up my makeup collection and take it from the stuff on eBay and the oily foundation from Avon (excluding the lippy and contour powder) and in what I understood to be a mid-range in the makeup world. The honour really fell to Max Factor. I got the Max Factor Facefinity Primer, Max Factor Facefinity Foundation, as well as the pressed powder and what seems to be a massive product and, is great and a life saver for me was the Max Factor Pan Stick.

Xmas Night Out

At the time, it was great it went down a treat I felt great and surprised loads of my colleagues and to this day we still talk about that awesome night. It was a month or two down the line when I had the chance to dress and take loads of pictures I noticed it wasn’t getting rid of the shadow at all, but only showing blue.

Why Was This Happening and How To Solve it?

This where I spent months trying to solve this, I was never going to try the lipstick or look on YouTube… stupid mistake. So, I went to work trying to find out how to stop this blue shite from showing. I've always said is if you’re trying out new things is buy low-end makeup first to test if it works well then start to work your way up to the high-end stuff. Which I didn’t and I wasted loads of money doing. (there’s no truth in that it’s just generally how I do it)

Covering Stubble Part 1

So, I went to MAC in Manchester and asked about how to conceal my shadow which I was recommended this;

This is where you get two shades of concealer one dark and one light which after opening it came with a little applicator which looks like the end of lip gloss wand or liquid lipstick wand. Which after trying it took ages to apply and wasn’t an even coverage, but it was too dark for my face so I had to go over it with the lighter shade, I knew straight away it wasn’t for that type of concealing… A nice £20 try out and only to use once. This didn’t blend very well with the Max Factor foundation either and not much difference was made. Fail

Covering Stubble Part 2

Next, I managed to get my hands-on NYX which was my next product which I was recommended to buy and a few people said to go orange. So, I bought NYX’s Nyx Full Coverage Cache-Cernes Totale, which is like a light cream (Not sure of what you call the substance) but it was better than being a liquid and it did cover up my stubble and after I applied my foundation it covered my stubble plus there was no blue either… But it was too good to be true as I hit yet another problem. It mixed with my foundation causing it to go darker. For £6 I think it was a step in the right direction. Still a fail

Covering Stubble Part 3

After the issue and listening to people online with suggesting it was getting harder and harder to find what would work and it took me a few good months to think of what would work, and I came up with the idea of just using a darker colour concealer to cancel out the dark hairs and then go over that with a lighter concealer to stop that mixing in with my foundation????? So, I went back to MAC because I thought it was the holy grail of makeup as so many people I knew used them. I spoke to a makeup artist and I got MAC Studio Finish Concealer ‘NW30’ and MAC Pro Longwear ‘NC20’ (I think) concealer.

These worked wonders but it stopped the shadow and the blue coming through and was amazing and I used this up until February this year (2017) that was until the Kat Von D foundation came which again will be discussed another time. But looking back it did cause my foundation to go Cakey so even though it did cut out the shadow and the blue which did work but it was too much using two concealers. The Pro Longwear was a liquid and the Studio finish was like the NYX one similar to a light cream. Unfortunately, this also caused my foundation to be lighter and heavier. Yet another fail

Covering Stubble Part 4

Okay so I started to see something more positive but I needed to add just as many layers but have them thinner and without affecting my foundation in colour and look heavy, again that came down to MAC with using the same Studio Finish Concealer ‘NW20’ but a lighter colour which I started using around mid-spring time when I dressed the odd time and I think in my first live of this year (2017) in a makeup group I’m in. I can say it worked pretty well it didn’t affect my foundation much either, my skin was able to breathe also. Pass… but still a fail.

Covering Stubble Part 5… Ish

This year I went to sparkle and I don’t think I used the NW20 concealer because of time reasons and it didn’t seem to have an impact on changing the colour of my foundation, so could this be the end of the road for me finding the right concealer to hid the blue? We will find out soon when I try it out more.

People will say well get laser hair surgery then? That’s true but there are other factors with this which will be addressed in a future post as this one is long enough. This is all for this post I will expand on this as soon as I have more info when I try it out.

Thanks for reading and I hope to post soon.

Much love

Sarah

xxx