How to Make Sure Your Makeup Looks Natural and Feminine

Makeup feminization skills are hard to master. We have to use a lot of different tricks, so we can make our natural appearance more feminine. But it’s easy to exaggerate and end up with awkward results. If you don’t get the balance right, it’s possible to end up with an unnatural look. Lacking balance ruins your chances of passing as a female, as the results are artificial.

You must measure your makeup carefully and choose colors close to your skin tone. In case you want a more casual look, you may also want to avoid some techniques altogether. If you want to learn that and more, read this article so that you can achieve more natural femininity.

1. Use tones near your skin tone

A common mistake is to use tones that contrast too much with your natural skin color. Cross-dressers make use of contouring to hide their masculine features better. And there’s a common misconception that makes us think that more contrast means that the contouring will be more effective. It’s not true, as exaggerated contour looks too artificial.

It would help if you kept it similar to your natural skin color. Your goal is to look natural, and a convincing contour comes from a believable contrast. A good rule of thumb to keep this balance is to avoid makeup that is more than two shades darker or lighter than your skin.

2. Be careful with the foundation

Foundation is a key item for most cross-dressers. It helps us to conceal imperfections in our skin and masculine features such as our beards. Besides that, it also serves as a base coat for the rest of our makeup. But excessive or cakey foundation makes our complexion look way too even, which is unnatural.

Real women have flaws in their skin and multiple tones. With that in mind, you should apply your foundation to specific areas of your face to feminize them. If you would still prefer a bit more coverage, avoid making it too opaque. Please make sure the layer is sheer enough to show your many different skin tones through it.

3. Use less powder

Powder brings many benefits and risks similar to those brought by the foundation. Its main goal is to help your makeup settle down, preventing it from falling off. But miss the balance, and the powder itself starts to fall. Cracks may also appear, making your makeup book heavy and artificial.

You have two possible solutions here. The simple one would be for you to use as little powder as possible. But mistakes happen, and powder is something difficult to dose. If that’s your case, make use of facial spray to hold everything in place. It also helps you to recover some of your face’s natural glow.

4. Get to know nude tones

A flashy red lipstick, combined with a range of colorful eyeshadows, is the dream of many newcomers. It may work to feminize us in a more artistic way, but it also makes the presence of makeup something obvious.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as a cross-dresser, it is that subtle makeup is the most effective. It doesn’t give itself always and creates a more natural and feminine look for your face. My recommendation here is for you to use discreet nude tones for both your eyeshadow and lipstick. It varies according to your skin tone, ranging from pink and beige to dark brown tones. Because of that, it is important that you always keep the first topic in mind.

5. Use mascara instead of false lashes

False lashes tend to do a good job feminizing your face, and even cisgender women use this trick. However, we tend to see it more often when they go out or on other special occasions. In their daily life, women tend to go around with their natural lashes, which are indeed thicker than men’s.

But if you try to compensate for that with false lashes in casual circumstances, you’ll be exaggerating. People might notice something is off with your appearance and figure it out. To feminize your lashes and have them still look natural, use mascara. It will make them stand out more naturally and look just like women’s lashes.

6. Style or dye your eyebrows

Male and female eyebrows are indeed different. While men rarely take care of theirs, women will do so pretty often. They have them stylized and arched in a way that highlights their femininity, and cross-dressers take advantage of that. But it also involves a common mistake. That’s because some of our sisters will try to achieve such an effect by using nothing but makeup. Their idea is to paint over their natural eyebrows, but it looks quite unnatural.

Instead of doing that, start to style your eyebrows. Use tweezers to pluck out the excess and give it an arched shape. You can also use small scissors to reduce the length of unwanted hair. I also recommend you occasionally comb your eyebrows to help them keep their shape. I also want to point out that there’s nothing wrong with using a little makeup to help it stand out. In fact, it can even make your eyebrows appear more natural and fuller. It must, however, be subtle since it’s easy to notice makeup in this region. Using too much will fail to create a convincing effect, as it won’t look natural.

In order to look feminine in a convincing way, cross-dressers must master the art of balance and apply it to their makeup logic. Unless you’re a drag queen, exaggeration won’t do you any good. That’s because if you want to pass as a woman, your looks must appear to be natural. You better avoid giving away any hints that you’re using makeup to hide your masculinity. Therefore, you must be both subtle and precise with your makeup tools. Do you have any experience with that? Make sure you leave a comment if you have any other tips you’d like to share!

Quiz:

Of all the tips above, which one do you think is the most important to follow if you want your complexion to look naturally feminine?

A. Avoid a foundation overload.

B. Give preference to nude tones.

C. Keep everything close to your natural skin color.