After several unsuccessful attempts at sharpening my liplining pencil (a Revlon Timeliner for Lips in Espresso), I finally devised a semi-intelligent technique: scrape off enough of the pencil with the pencil sharpener so that a small amount of the lip "crayon" protrudes. Gently "sharpen" the exposed tip on a sanding block (a piece of paper will work, too) by wiping the tip against the surface of the block. Wipe in an up and down, not a side by side, motion. A side by side motion places too much stress on the tip; an up and down motion will distribute the pressure along the entire length of the liplining pencil.
Revlon's Toast of New York lipstick was a perfect match for the Espresso lipliner. You should always choose lipliner that's a little darker than the lipstick itself; this gives a more "defined" and "finished" look to your lips. And, of course, never match different color categories together. A red lipliner should go with red lipstick, brown with brown, pink with pink, etc. If the color categories don't match or if the lipliner is lighter than the lipstick, don't use the lipliner!
I like to pile on my lipstick to give it a really wet effect, but you have to be careful not to overdo it because lipstick can move around and cake up against the edges of your mouth. To prevent lipstick from getting on your teeth, roll a paper towel up into a tight stick, insert it into your mouth (don't think like that!), close your lips gently over it, and pull the stick out of your mouth. All of the excess lipstick will come off onto the paper towel. It's a patented Kalina Drag Bunny Trick.
I lined only my upper eyelids
with a dark brown eyelining pencil. I used the same eyeliner to shape my eyebrows and added more definition to my brows
by applying mascara to select eyebrows across the entire length of each brow. I applied three coats of black L'Oreal's
Lash Out mascara to both my upper and lower eyelashes, separating my lashes with a lash comb between each
coat.
Eyeshadows I used included orange and dark brown shades, both from the Ladybird cosmetics line, and a highlighting shadow from Revlon. I used L'Oreal's Bronze Soleil, a dark brown blush that has become a permanent part of my makeup kit.
The foundation I used was a concoction mixed up by makeup alchemist Jessica Cherry. Jessica has performed makeover magic on some of the most beautiful brides in ritzy Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (for some odd reason, weddings are huge in Philly and its burbs). For a mere $30, she will mix a small batch of makeup that will match your skin color and undertone exactly. Up until now, I've played with drugstore and department store makeup and have found some pretty good, but never perfect, matches. Jessica has changed all of that. She mixed me a bit of yellow with beige foundation to come up with a perfect match for my skin.
Everyone's skin has one of a peach, pink, yellow, green, or lilac undertone in it, so when you buy a foundation that says "wheat beige" in a department store, a makeup manufacturer is actually making a bold statement in saying that anyone with wheat beige-colored skin will look good with wheat beigecolored foundation. You also have to account for the undertone in the skin. Some people with wheat beige-colored skin have a peach undertone, while others may have a green or lilac undertone. If you would like to get a foundation that matches your skin color and undertone exactly, give me a call and I'll set you up with the master makeup artist herself. Oh, and by the way, if you don't already know, Jessica did my makeup for the Henri David Ball this past Halloween.
I wore a candle-colored Lilyette push-up enhancer bra with my Mirage boobs underneath an ivory-colored ribbed turtleneck that I got from The Gap. Candle is an off-white "blush" color, a nice match underneath my ivory top. Make no mistake about it: black is my color, but light colored tops, such as white and red, draw attention to me more. Such colors bring out the color of my light green eyes and accentuate the color of my ginger brown hair. I wore the requisite black everything else (e.g. jeans, shoes, jacket, etc.), of course.
My nails were done up the night before, long talons that extended almost half an inch beyond my fingertips, all painted with a matching Revlon Toast of New York shade, two coats, followed by a coat of clear topcoat. I could see a clear reflection of myself in each nail, a telltale sign that I had painted my nails expertly.
Excess jewelry would have looked too... well... excessive with an ivory top and black everything else, so I banned the earrings that night and wore only a few rings and my Anne Klein II watch. Too much gold and silver would have cried out either "DRAG! DRAG!!!" or "PRINCESS! PRINCESS!!!" or even worse, "DRAG PRINCESS!"
On our way up the alleyway towards our favorite club, Woody's, we passed by an odd sight: a tall blonde-haired crossdresser in her 50's was escorted by a shorter, younger Italian man. The crossdresser wore a fire engine red PVC vinyl outfit - jacket, miniskirt, and red patent heels - and a red and black striped top underneath the jacket. Sounds like a delectable woman, eh? Well... on a younger woman, this outfit would have looked more appropriate, albeit still outrageous. On the aging crossdresser... well... let's just say it didn't look right. Hell, I'll put it in one word and be as nice as possible: YICK!!!
Mary and I entered Woody's at 15 minutes past midnight. There was a chance that we would see our friend, Doris, that night (she told us earlier that she was bent on going to Les Femmes with a couple of her friends). Shortly after we walked into the dance room and settled at our favorite bar, Doris walked up to us gave us a big hug. She turned to look at me.
"You look awesome!" she exclaimed with a huge smile. I smiled as she was studying me extensively. She had a very attractive smile.
"God, you look so good! You look like such a bitch! I love it!" she exclaimed.
She kept looking at me over and over. She told me that the wig I wore (Rene of Paris' Tara) was the best and most realistic one she had seen on me so far. She didn't like the curlier styles I had worn in the past, remarking that Asian people rarely have curly hair.
I was so enthused by her remarks that I grabbed her hand and placed it on one of my breasts.
"Here, cop a feel!" I said.
"AIEEE!!!" she screamed and giggled, retracting her hand quickly. In the past, she would have kept it there, but this time I must have struck a chord in her. She was nervous and she only gets nervous in front of good-looking women.
Good.
If you haven't figured it out by now, our friend Doris is a lesbian and a very good-looking one at that.
Doris tells it like it is. If you looked ugly, she would say it to your face point blank. If she complimented you, then you were doing an awesome job. Most of the time she wouldn't say anything if you just looked okay. You need people like her if you want to be 100% passable.
She scooted back to her friends whom she had been neglecting all this time.
"Think Doris wanted me?" I whispered to Mary.
"Yeah, of course, you flirt!" Mary replied. She also poked me in a "Hey! Don't ever do that again!" kind of way, to which I giggled.
We stood sipping our drinks for a little bit. Then my drag clubkid friend, Siana, walked up to us. We exchanged howare-you's and air kisses. A big "Mwaa!!! Mwaaa!!!" on each cheek.
Siana looked especially wicked with her pale white foundation and heavily lined eyes and black lipstick. Kind of shocking, but definitely an attention-getter. Despite the makeup, Siana and her equally ostentatious friend, Jana, were always dancing with handsome guys.
We started talking about things, things, and things. As with any pair of drag queens, our conversation eventually turned to image.
"You look so beautiful... I would never mistake you for a man! You hardly have any makeup on and you look great! Such flawless skin!" Siana said to me.
"I don't have flawless skin!" I exclaimed. "Here, look at my skin in the light."
Siana examined my face more closely and nodded.
"See, I'm just like you. We tell it like it is. Some queens I know would just wave off my compliments and say, 'Oh, yes, I know I have flawless skin. I know I'm beautiful.'"
"I don't like people like that," I said.
"Me, neither," Siana replied.
Jana and Siana were not outwardly flamboyant like many of the foo-foo drag queens out there. There was a degree of subtle flamboyance about them, much like me. Here's a lesson for you young dragkids out there: Never EVER advertise to everyone in your own voice, "Oh, yes, YES, I know I'm beautiful." Such an attitude is silly and stupid and is the demise of many a drag queen. If you were truly beautiful, other people would be able to see it for themselves.
"Girlfriend," Siana continued talking to me, "I have a picture of you and me hanging on my wall. I just love the way you look in that picture! You were in black jeans, a black lace top, and you had black wavy hair!"
"I have a picture of you, too," I told her.
"Oooh!!! We have to take a picture of the two of us again. I looked so hideous that night! My makeup was all mismatching! But you learn over time, y'know..."
"You should've seen Kalina when she first went out," Mary said to Siana. "She looked kind of... bad."
"Yeah... hideous," I admitted.
Siana nodded. "Well, it's hard, y'know... but, over time, we all get better at applying makeup."
We all agreed. I even told Siana about my techniques for hip padding. She was amazed at the revelation and, for a long time, thought that my body was hormone-induced. I smiled at her remark.
"I once met a girl who told me she could make me look just like a woman," Siana continued, "but I didn't want that! I'm content with who I am and how I look. No one can tell me what I should look like!"
I nodded and agreed.
"Whenever I make up my face, I always try to find the most pale foundation I could find and then I find something that really contrasts it, like black eyeliner and black lipstick. And then I get a really cool outfit."
It was cool and quite retro. Pink PVC vinyl vest, black turtleneck underneath, checkered black and white skirt, black leggings, and funky wide-heeled shoes.
"I go for a severe look," she admitted.
So, that night, I had my first heart-to- heart with a fellow drag queen.
Siana's boyfriend stopped by and the two of them headed for the dance floor.
Mary and I observed a Suzanne Somers look-alike drag queen dancing with a couple of shorter guys. Suzanne wore a glittery silver sweater top, black bell-bottom pants, and five-inch spiked silver sequined boot shoes. She had an updo hairstyle reminiscent of Chrissie Snow from the early episodes of "Three's Company." On the negative side, she had a little tiny butt and no hips to speak of, but the men around the dance floor were checking her out like there was no tomorrow.
"That's good drag," I overheard one of a pair of young baseball cap-donning boys say to the other about Suzanne.
Doris stopped by again, chatted with Mary for a couple of sentences, and disappeared for the rest of the night.
This month's Greater Philadelphia Renaissance meeting contained a special treat: "Shopping 101," a lecture on how to "be smart, buy smart, and look smart." The speaker was Jessica Brandon, this year's chapter leader of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of Renaissance. Jessica was dynamic, articulate, insightful, and displayed a thorough knowledge of her subject. She kept her audience entertained with many humorous and apt examples to support her points.
Jessica covered everything a crossdresser needs to know about shopping in this very entertaining and informative lecture. Topics included where to shop, making preparations before hitting the stores, how to shop in person, how to shop for clothes, shoes, wigs, lingerie, hosiery, and cosmetics. A special focus was placed on the fact that you don't have to spend a lot of money to look great. Jessica goes in depth in describing the various shopping resources available to the crossdresser and why crossdressers should not feel intimidated by shopping in public. One of her main points, "Your money is as good as anybody else's," is both riveting and true.
This is one of the best crossdressing lectures Mary and I have attended. It was a pleasure to hear Jessica speak. Mary thought highly of the lecture and admitted, "Even I learned something about shopping!" Of particular importance was the high degree of credibility in Jessica's expertise because the crossdressers in attendance were actually learning from a fellow crossdresser and not some "nontransgendered outsider." I advised Jessica that the lecture should have been recorded on tape and passed on as a helpful aid to the younger, more inexperienced sisters.
In the future, Jessica hopes to strengthen her lecture and give it at other transgendered organized group meetings in the country. I have no doubt that she will eventually achieve her goal. Waste no time, transgendered support group leaders everywhere! Sign Jessica Brandon up today! "Shopping 101" is loads of fun!
For those of you who would like a taste of Jessica's style and flair, check out her column, "The Shoppin' Sister" in TransVamp Magazine. Link to http://www.cris.com/~Kalina/ Vamp/VampPubs.html to read about TransVamp Magazine and other books I have written or edited. Thanks and see you next month, sexy vampires!
Kalina
The Sexy
Vampire
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