The 90s: Agent Scully

 

 

The 90s are represented by my old childhood heroine, agent Scully of The X Files! Studying her makep after becoming a retrophile, I realise how classical it is, though done in the earth hues of the 90s.

 

Face: The skin is supposed to be rather porcelain-pale, I think, so on with the foundation! Otherwise nothing fancy, no sculpting that I could detect.

 

Blusher: I used a discreet neutral rosy-earthy hue and applied in in a quite wide area mostly underneath the cheekbones. Absolutely no highlighter or bronzer - this is a matte, elegant look.

 

Eyebrows: I used my usual brown eyebrow pencil to softly fill in the brows. These are not the angular precision brows so common these days, these are natural, softly rounded brows and almost the same thickness all the way. I rounded mine and didn't fill in their natural angles.

 

Eyes: Use two hues of matte, beige eyeshadow: a pale nude all over the lids and a slightly darker beige or brown one to create or emphasise the globe line. I think the globe shadow is thicker and more emphasised towards the inner corner of the eyebrows and the root of the nose, to create a slightly "sad" or "vulnerable" look. The globe-line shadow has to be very soft and discreet, unlike last week's Takarazuka makeup where it's almost like an eyeliner line!

The eyes are framed, but softly, absolutely no liquid black eyeliner! I used a brown pencil (actually my eyebrow pencil) all around the eyes, thinly around the inner half and a little more thickly around the outer half, with just the smallest hint a hint of a wing. I then curled my lashes and put on mascara, not too thickly. I used my regular black mascara but brown would work fine too, as this is a soft and understated look. I guess you could add some very fine and discreet separate fake lashes for added length, but be careful so you don't get too much volume or heaviness.

 

Lips: The lipstick looks almost completely brown, but then I think the reference picture I used is quite desaturated, almost a little sepia-toned. Anyway, brown lipstick is just right for the 90s! I first applied the reddish-brown "Cinnamon Spice" from Wet N Wild, found it too red and applied the cool-toned brown, almost more purple than red, "Mocha-licious" on top. ("Mocha-licious" alone is not a good pick for my pale, cool skin tone, it's such a cool brown it completely drains my face. It was probably made for a warmer, darker skin tone, maybe olive?) My lips still look too red in the picture, but cameras tend to exagerrate red hues (and flatten out all their nuances, which is why it's so hard to compare red makeup swatches!) I also rounded off my naturally angular Cupid's bow a bit.

 

 



 

21st Century Makeup: Takarazuka!

 

I'm reviving this blog, this time in English and with focus on retro makeup instead of perfume. This post starts a backwards journey throughout makeup history. Representing the 21st Century is the Japanese all-female Takarazuka Revue Company and their masculine makeup. Yes, masculine, because the actresses playing male roles wear lots of makeup too, but it looks quite different from the makeup worn by those portraying female characters. The particular character I chose to copy is Death from the (originally Austrian) musical "Elisabeth", which Takarazuka has staged 7 times since the 90s. I've based my makeup most closely on Shizuki Asato's Death, which is technically cheating since it's from the late 90s. But on to the makeup...

 

Face: The face is pale, but not whitened, so I just used my regular foundation and concealer. For a proper stage makeup, I should probably have evened out and covered the skin a lot more and done more contouring. I did a little contouring around the cheekbones and jawline using my "Face Contour Kit" from Sleek, but you can hardly tell.

 

Blusher: The blusher is supposed to be a very cool sort of mauve or violet colour, applied in a triangle shape to emphasise the cheekbones. I used the coolest pink I had but it's still too pink - I should have gone with violet or lilac eyeshadow instead. I think the Takarazuka makeup artists apply blusher in a more "Asian" (Kabuki?) style all around the temples and forehead, not just on the cheeks, but I didn't do that here. If you look at the picture below, the same violet shade continues up from the cheeks onto the forehead, but I think I mistook it for a shadow or coloured light when I tried to copy the makeup.

 

Eyebrows: I painted in the eyebrows with regular brown eyebrow pencil. They're prolonged towards the nose and made quite angular, with a sort of downwards beak. I then continued the line upwards towards the temples past the "corner" where my eyebrows naturally start their downwards slope. Just slightly past - I probably should have prolonged the eyebrows a bit more. I then drew in a new downwards curve just outside my natural one, softly rounded - no angles or corners here.

 

Eyes: The fake globe line or eyelid crease is the most defining characteristic of the Takarazuka makeup. It's usually following the eye shape a bit more, but in this particular makeup is just goes straight out towards the temples. I obviously exaggerated it and drew the line too long, like a winged eyeliner. I used a sort of grey-green eyeshadow, applied with an angular brush. Under the eyes, there's a similar line, starting not quite in the inner corner of the eye and going straight out, leaving a bit of space between the line and the lash line, especially out towards the outer corner of the eye, in order to widen the eyes. Fill in this space with a light, shímmery eyeshadow or pencil and don't paint the lower lashes (which I mistakenly did). I used a mint green shimmer eyeshadow all over my lids. (I'm not listing eyeshadow brands because I'm mostly using old samples from various mineral makeup companies.) Overall, my eye makeup is to greenish to match the original - I think a white shimmer eyeshadow or highlighter type colour would work just as well, and a grey or black eyeshadow or eyeliner for the lines.

I then used regular liquid eyeliner to paint a sort of cat eye shape. It's really hard to get a good wing on my baggy eyelids since the shape looks completely different depending on whether my eyes are opened or closed, but the general idea is that the wing goes pretty much straight outwards and not upwards. To complete the eye makeup, there should have been some rather extreme fake lashes with thick, long, individual lashes but I can't handle fake lashes so I just painted a lot of mascara on my puny little lashes.

 

Lips: The closest lipstick colour I had was Nyx "Orpheus", a sort of lead-grey metallic with a vague violet hue. (I have to admit I bought this mainly for the name, my favourite opera protagonist, but the colour itself has really grown on me! Otherwise I can't recommend any other Nyx lipsticks than their matte ones - the regular round and black label ones are too sheer for my taste, bleed way to much and taste terribly parfumey.) My lipstick is probably closer to what Mizu Natsuki is wearing as Death in a different production. Shizuki Asato's lips are much paler and I think a close colour match would be a pale, cool, grey-mauve like Illamasqua "Posture" or Lime Crime "Chinchilla" but I don't own any of those. A really "deadening" beige or nude might work too, if you go for that kind of thing.

 

That's it for today, now here's what the makeup is supposed to really look like, if you have the face for it too: