I’ve never been much of a makeup person. The only times I really wore makeup was when I had interviews, or a special event, like prom, graduation or dance performances. I’ve never felt like I had to wear makeup because most other people my age do.
But, over the past winter break, I started thinking about how different I would look if I wore makeup, and had my own signature makeup style. Even though it’s February now, I haven’t really worn more makeup than I used to. I did, however, decide to explore what I would look like if someone else did my makeup.
So, one day, my friend and I did each other’s makeup and compared it to what we looked like when we did our own, vs. when we wore none.
The pictures here don’t really show all the nuances of the differences between all the versions, but they do highlight that there was a stark difference between when we did our makeup and when we did each other’s.
In the first picture, my friend Celia did my makeup. She used bolder coloring and emphasized the eyes, with smoky eyeshadow, which is characteristic of her style. She used a combination of many different colors and shades to achieve the smoky effect, especially using charcoals and grays.
Next, I did her makeup. I usually try to emphasize the contours and highlights, especially of the cheekbones to get a sharp look. I don’t think that really came through on Celia. I also worked on the eyes more than I normally would on myself, but since I used pale lavender and pearl colors, the effect wasn’t as big as when Celia did the smoky eye on me.
When I do my own makeup, again, usually for interviews, I aim for a bronzed effect, emphasizing the warm, gold undertones I would describe my skin with. This picture was taken halfway through the day, and I had done my makeup in the morning, so the lip color is mostly faded, but it was originally a pink stain, just slightly more tinted than cherry chapstick. In comparison to when Celia did it, my eyes had just a hint of mascara instead of bold eyeshadow.
Celia’s touch on her own face reflected some of the things she did on mine. For the eyes however, instead of using grays and charcoals for a smoky eye, she used blues and pearl for the inner corner. This was her prom makeup, and while she is partial to bright lipstick, she has a more subtle color than what I would describe as her signature color here.
For comparison, here are pictures of the two of us with zero makeup on. When we do our own makeup, we just emphasize certain aspects of our natural faces, and don’t look too different than we would without any makeup. When we did each other’s, we just transferred what we would have done on ourselves onto each other, and since our faces are so different anyway, the end result was more sharply contrasting to our normal appearances.
The experience was fun, as neither of us had done each other’s makeup before. There were definitely times when we scared each other, since we only saw the end result, not knowing how it was going to look when the other used the colors and amounts she did. While I’m sure many of you have already done your friends’ makeup, and do it regularly, for anyone who has not, I would highly recommend it. It’s an awesome source of entertainment, and can be really cool to compare each other’s styles.