Make-up comfort with "burnt cherries"

About 3 years ago, I just felt like playing with some makeup and ended up with a pretty intense look. While I was super proud of the darker-than-usual smokey eye I did, the real kicker here was the lips. My lips are fairly thick, and slathering on a dark cherry lip color over a layer of black eyeliner pencil made for a pretty goth look.

A post shared by Kellie Low 紫倩 (@yukari_ivankov) on May 8, 2014 at 1:52am PDT

It wasn't Halloween, and all I went out in was a casual maxi dress. I don't remember much but the feeling of rejection that my ex gave me at the time for "subjecting him to scrutiny" for going out with him for lunch at the local McDonald's.


Heavy make-up here is typically only worn by beauty industry employees, or "club girls". The color black can almost only exist as eyeliner and mascara. Black nails have only begun to gain traction as a sophisticated color alongside nude, pastel, and classic manicure colors.

A post shared by Kellie Low 紫倩 (@yukari_ivankov) on May 12, 2014 at 11:07am PDT

I would've probably been spared the criticism of being too bold if I skipped the black liner on the lips. Actually, I would have been spared all criticism if I was dead - one day you'll have to come to peace with the fact that everything you do will evoke criticism from someone - regardless of how good you felt about it.


Any black pencil would do, but it should preferably be a creamy one. I used a lipstick called Cherry Jubilee, hence why I call them "burnt cherries" sometimes the black pencil doesn't blend well with the lipstick and leaves patches of "charring" over the darker cherry color.

A post shared by Kellie Low 紫倩 (@yukari_ivankov) on Oct 31, 2017 at 9:59pm PDT

I consciously decided to recreate this look - particularly the lips - for Halloween of 2017. I wouldn't bring myself come up with a proper costume, but I figured that this would be enough of a shocker - and I was partially right.


I hadn't noticed how "far" I've come in terms of cosmetic comfort until I actually dug up the photos of that old make-up. My lipstick application skill still sucks, though - I almost never use lipstick, and this particular lipstick is hell to work with because it feathers and smears quite easily.


One thing to note, though, is that my eye shape has changed since I last did that look, and hence how I do a smokey eye is completely different.


I had semi-hooded lids in the past, so for any color to be visible, application had to be almost to the brow to get the "smokey" effect that I wanted to achieve. And I was hell-bent on perfecting brush application and blending techniques, typically obsessing over the precision and blending so much that I would spend more than maybe an hour to "perfect" the application.

Image from sichenmakeupholic on Youtube

A few months after I originally did that look, I woke up from a night of crying with a "double eyelid" only on the right eye. For the record, Asian eyes are typically not just monolids and "double lids" - depending on the amount of skin and fat each person has on their lids, they can appear different. For the "double lids", there are two fairly prominent differences in eyelids: hooded, and double, with the main differences being how much lashline is visible when they eye is open.


The person who was fairly hesitant with using eyelid tape was suddenly "forced" into using it, but I found a specific eyelid tape from Daiso that worked very well, so I had that going for me.


However, this change in eyelid shape meant that the shadow "technique" that I had worked to master was now obsolete to a degree - I could now do fairly striking eye looks with even minimal application of dark shadows, since they were now more visible on the lid.


And because of this significant decrease in eye shadow that I need to use, I can now get away with being more sloppy with my application. Or the more accurate statement would be that I'm much more comfortable with being less serious with my make-up application. In the past, I would spent up to 2 hours doing a simple look; for the entire trip to Korea (post to be up later when I get around to it :D), I spent only 10 minutes each morning to put in my lenses, apply my skincare, and do my make-up.


And speaking of lenses, they now play a more crucial part of my make-up. In the past, I could go without lenses because the make-up itself was a key focal point - the shadow was much more intense because I learned American/Western style make-up instead of Asian/local (tons of videos on this topic on Youtube).


Now I rely almost solely on the lenses to give the make-up that extra pop. That's how subtle my shadow usage has become, if I use it at all. Overall I guess my make-up looks much more natural, but I might look more aesthetically striking? (I tend to gravitate towards using colored lenses with little to no enlarging effects)


What I'm trying to say here is... I'm really much more comfortable with going out without the whole shebang of make-up - it had to be a certain amount of make-up in a certain way before I would go out and feel good for the rest of the time I had the make-up on. Now it's more of a vibe where I can just plop on some brows and I'm good even if I accidentally rub off half a brow in the middle of the day.

And despite still being fairly into dark, bold looks, I find myself leaning more toward more subtle, feminine/classy looks that don't involve too many dark colors.


Tl;dr: compared to when I put on make-up during my youth, I'm much more comfortable with how my features have changed, and much more comfortable without being overly strict about how make-up must be done for me to be comfortable leaving the house.