Isolation Creation - Drag!

It's a new week but as the country has moved into a stricter lockdown, our university lectures are still online and its likely to continue for several more weeks! That said, the show must go on and in that spirit we created a theatrical Drag look on ourselves.

I began by doing some background reading on the feminisation of the masculine face. Men typically have 'M' shaped hairlines - the hair receding back at the temples - which can give the illusion of a higher forehead whereas in women, the shape tends to be more rounded and therefore look smaller. Women have more rounded jawlines which is interesting to me because makeup trends in the last ten years or so has seen women contour their faces much more and using that technique to square off the jawline and making it actually more masculine! which begs the question - who are we wearing makeup for? other than wearing it for ourselves, is it really to attract attention from the opposite sex? or is it to gain the attention of other women? It certainly gave me a lot to think about! The other part that I read was looking at the 'rule of thirds' diving the face into three horizontal sections to make it appear more aesthetically pleasing, if you change the size of one, the others must balance out also.

So how does all of that apply to drag makeup? Generally speaking when taking a male face to a more feminine one what we want to do is make everything appear higher, more rounded. I did a drag look on myself but the real challenge came when I had another try on my husband (he's a real trooper!) I started off with a brow cover and I used 'Got2Be Spiking Glue' which when I've used it before for glueing down wigs its worked well but Harry has very thick eyebrows and the hair texture showed through, so next time I would use something thicker like soap or Kryolan Eyebrow Plastic. When you watch programmes like RuPaul's Drag Race or YouTube you will see drag queens using the purple Elmers glue which is fine for them to use on their own face however I wouldn't personally use it on a model/client as its not tested for use on the skin.

I next laid down foundation across the eye area so I had a nice even base to work from but could easily clean up any eyeshadow fallout later on. I drew in highly arched, well defined eyebrows using the front of Harry's natural brow as a guide with a brow powder and mixing medium as I prefer to do this style of brow with a wet product as I feel I can get more definition. I sketched out where wished to create a faux crease however were I to do this look again I wouldn't have made the crease so low in the inner corner as it made the eyes appear smaller and I wanted to achieve the opposite. I did like how well my blending turned out as it was right over all that hair texture from his eyebrows and I felt my colour choice of a warm brown helped to disguise the colour a bit more. I decided to do a very exaggerated liner on Harry but in the end I didn't like it as I had mixed my gel liner with Kryolan Makeup Blend to give the product a bit more fluidity but I used too much and it took a long time to dry down and as Harry is not used to wearing so much makeup (he's worn stage makeup but nothing like what I applied to him this week!) he ended up smudging it and that made it hard to keep clean.. I also think I should have adjusted my working position to achieve better symmetry as I ended up working almost exclusively from one side and had I worked from the front it would have been easier.

After finishing the eyes I applied a very full coverage base as this look was intended to be more of as theatrical, performance look and therefore needed a heavier coverage. With Harry having a very thick beard I couldn't really practice a defined contour of the cheek and jawline as they were hidden but I was pleased with my nose contour as it was nice and straight and well blended. Upon reflection, I should have added more blush to Harry's look, should this have been a real life performance makeup, he would have appeared washed out on stage under the heavy lighting.

I would like to learn some basic barbering skills so that should I come across a model/actor/client with facial hair like Harry's in the future I could have the skills to be able to trim and tidy it. That would be helpful also in the event of keeping up continuity on a film or TV set. Harry's facial hair is in need of tidying up but due to the restrictions on leaving the house I had to give it my best attempt with some wax and a small pair of scissors! that said, I had very little room to create a big overdrawn lip but I tried contour the lip by blending a touch of concealer into the centre and darkening the outer corners.

I gave Harry a wig to wear that I added a shadow root to and styled myself to give the look some finish - something I'm definitely still working on! Lashes would have really added to the look, typically the lashes worn by queens are very thick and usually several pairs stacked together. Harry has sensitive skin and has not been patch tested for lash glue and it would have been unprofessional of me to apply them anyway - despite being my husband! Ideally I would have patch tested him at least 24 hours prior to application.

Overall I think I could do this look better but I learnt a lot from the look I did create. For example, I know now that brow cover on a man needs much heavier duty products and longer drying time, I'm learning more about some of the more professional products in my kit like the Makeup Blend, it's a product I've never encountered until starting this level of training. I'm becoming more aware of my working positions and how that can affect my work which can only be a good thing. I also feel like I am becoming more aware of the attention to detail needed to take my looks to the next level. I created this look from several bearded drag images but did not create myself a face chart which is something I definitely should have done.

Thanks for reading!

Fern x