1. facetime: It should go without saying that your foundation should lean towards yellow rather than peach or pink to avoid anything masklike, but this does not necessarily mean that you are warm complexioned, simply because you have yellow undertones. This is counterintuitive, I know, and it took me a really long time, years even, for it to sink into my brain that I am cool-toned. Maybe it is because I am pale.


• The only way to know for certain is to try blush shades: pink (I found NARS Desire in high school) or coral (like Bobbi Brown Coral), whichever lights up your face should tell you, if inexactly—pink or plum is cool, coral or red is warm. I think the depth of your skintone is the deciding factor: pale-skinned Asians tend to be cool, while the medium-complexioned tend to be warm. I usually recommend a fairly strong blush for Asian women—the same evenness of skintone also translates into a lack of color. As for application, I concentrate color on the cheekbone, and sweep it inwards towards the apple of the cheek, rather than the other way around. I find this gives a more "sculpted" effect without the obviousness of a contour, and the more vertically tilted angle elongates the face.


• When Asians are tired or sick, undereye circles and other discolorations do not have a bluish undertone, as with Caucasians, but a brownish one. A touch of peach to your undereye concealer, rather than yellow, which can look jaundiced, is better for counteracting darkness under the eyes. This is somewhat less important for anyone with darker skintones, because pale skin is always more translucent.


• And finally, I like powders with a bit of peach or pink to them too, just a hint to perk up sallow, tired skin.


2. much ado about eyes: If there is one thing that Asian women complain about the most, it is their eyes. The lashes, the lids, the size, the color—really, quite the vehicle for self-hate, even though age is much more slow to show on Asian eyes. It is true, tiny lashes are frustrating, and I do not advise most Asian women to wear dark, heavy eye makeup because it looks strange hooded or closed in, but the almond shape and dark depths of Asian eyes are quite beautiful, you just need to learn how to emphasize what you have.


• First, lashes. Beyond more drastic measures such as lash extensions and false lashes, there are a few homemade tricks that I've found are useful. Buy yourself a Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler, because the pad is gently curved for a superior fit, and... I don't think any other eyelash curler really exists. Since Asian lashes tend to be quite straight, this step is crucial. Curled lashes will open up the eye. Next, mascara. It is difficult to find mascaras that keep a curl rather than flatten it and yet still give volume, but probably the best is Shiseido Lasting Lift Mascara. Whichever mascara you choose, it is imperative that you find the richest black. Your hair is black, so the more intense the black, the more definition your lashes are given. Last but not least, a creamy, equally intense black liner (I like Too Faced Lava Gloss), which is applied on the inner rim, as close to the lashline as possible (also known as tightlining). This gives your lashline the illusion of thickness and density without forcing you to pile on mascara, for a much more convincing effect.


• Next, and this is a corollary to lashes, eyeliner. Liner adds definition to the lashline, so this will further build up the illusion of thicker lashes. Apply a thick, smoky line, preferably with something soft and smudgeable. This is not really as dramatic as it sounds, because of the almond shape. Of course, you can skip this for a cleaner look, or soften it by using shadow to rim the eye, as was done in the image above. When it comes to color choice, I think most Asians are lucky. We are more or less a black and white palette, and as such, can wear most shades with little impunity. I favor sea blue, for example; it makes a beautiful contrast to the cool pinks I usually wear on my lips and cheeks, and it really makes brown eyes glow. If you're of the coral school, a deep olive is gorgeous.


• When it comes to eyeshadows, I actually dislike them. Anything that really resembles eyeshadow, anything that adds depth, looks "hooded", because it emphasizes the extra flesh on the lid. If I want a smoky eye, even, thick, smoky liner is usually enough. I wear little more than a silvered champagne on the lid, which opens up the eye and draws in light, and sometimes I switch it up with an ethereal lilac. I rarely venture beyond pastels, if ever. I look like a snake in dark eyeshadow (but what is dark to me is not necessarily dark to you, depending on your skintone), and I would say much the same of others. It's one thing not to feel shame, but hell, you gotta work around your flaws, not sally forth in ignorance.


• I've always had a little trouble with brows. They're not thin, but they are sparse and black against the skin (so filling them in properly is an issue), and the hairs are straight, so somewhat less inclined to follow the desired line, and the gaps (which can be remedied with proper trimming or brow gel). I think brows are especially important for Asian women, because they emphasize bone structure (Asians tend to have flatter faces) and add balance to the face, but for the reasons above, can be tricky. The best thing is Kevyn Aucoin The Precision Brow Definer: it gives you dense, perfectly filled in brows with no trouble whatsoever.


3. lucky lips: Since there are no physical drawbacks to Asian lips as a whole, you can run a gamut of lipcolors, though I daresay bright orange doesn't look good on anyone. My experience with press kits has shown me that pretty much every color is at my disposal (it's that black and white effect I was talking about), except for "noncolors" like a really muddy brown or a greyish nude which wash out an Asian's even skintone. The deeper your skintone, the less color you need to balance the lack of it in your skin, in which case you may very well enjoy browns. My friend Cathy, for example, looks really good in a clove lipcolor, a sort of reddish berry brown. The real limitation is personal preference (I like raspberries, wines, roses, and reds, but can in truth wear any color, so long as it's not too drab or too warm).

Labels: asian, bobbi brown, kevyn aucoin, lookbook, nars, shiseido, shu uemura, too faced