Makeup SOTF (State of the Face)

This is very unlikely to be interesting to anyone but myself.

But it has become shockingly interesting to myself, a project that takes not much deep thought but contains the promise of having one’s life all together. Like going to the container store. Some people buy notebooks. It’s also a chance to categorize. Very soothing to an unsoothed mind.

The project is - figure out (some categories of) makeup.

I’m 33, I’ve been wearing makeup for a very long time; this isn’t a “bare-faced unadorned girl tries out the world behind chapstick” situation. But it strikes me that I still don’t really know what they hell is going on half the time with makeup. 

You’d think you could just look at your face and decide if something looks good or bad, and adjust. But there are two problems. It’s confoundingly difficult to be sure if something looks good or bad, to me, and I think to others - that’s why all this obsession with undertones. Surely if it was easy you’d wear a warm red and a cool red and a neutral red and just see what looks good. But people pay “color analysis” randos (I mean, surely mostly for tiktok / fashion-girly-approved-ASMR) and it’s like, not always obvious. Which maybe means the whole thing is a crock. But so far I think maybe it’s not.

And then adjust! Adjust?! Too many variables, the shade the tone the finish the brand the angle - are you wearing liner, by the way? I mean, look, growth mindset, I’m sure lots of people do figure it out, but some aversion to waste and (going back to the first step) the fact that it won’t even be easy to evaluate has long made me shun an extended project. Also I don’t want to spend money if I’m not sure it will be great, and often not even then.

I remember how easy Cosmo made it seem - I have green eyes, so wear brown and burgundy. Easy peasy. Put things in the right places on your eye. 

Anyway, that’s all throat clearing preamble, the point is I have made some actual discoveries.

Eyes

One discovery was just the glory of slightly-more-useful-than-just-recreational-taxonomy, on the infinite trough of short form video. Hooded eyes are a thing, and maybe I have them? And maybe my eyeliner could look like a lot better? I’d never figured out liquid liner, except sometimes it looked good by chance. (I have found a great liner, stays on well, easy to use, cheap. I googled something like “drugstore liner stays on” or something like that to get it” 

And by golly I think these people are onto something. 

Things I like:

(The key is you basically draw the wing on with your eyes open and looking forward, a 2D projection onto the 3D shape, and then color it in, sort of like one of these

Things I plan to try:

(Eyeshadow above the spoon, basically if your eyelids aren’t visible, do your makeup on the part that is visible)

I mean probably maybe I should buy better quality eyeshadow? But I don’t want to. Or better brushes. Same. I’ve gone through a few sets. I like mine fine. 

And none of this addresses, like, how oily my skin is or how long lasting anything is. It really does get pretty overwhelming.

Lips

I owned something like 23 lipsticks when I took this photo (then I bought more). 

That’s a lot, and most of them weren’t even very good on me. (I acquired a lot of lipsticks in my ipsy glam bag era, plus random online shopping adventures). (Apparently this was post throwing out a few more cool-toned lipsticks in January 2025, which I don’t even remember doing).

Lips are hard, also, because I feel like the texture matters a lot? It’s really very uncomfortable to have dry lips and all the matte long staying ones are kind of drying even if they say they’re not (maybe the more expensive ones are better). I also found that putting lip balm over them basically destroys them, Which makes sense because it's basically just petroleum and oil is what takes off waterproof makeup. I thought that gloss was just a total fake out and basically not very different from Vaseline, but I now think I'm very wrong about that. There are different kinds of oils, and some of them will not take off your lipstick. So now I believe in lip gloss again, though I haven't bought any.

I did color analysis with my friends and a cheap set of amazon fabric swatches (enjoyable activity, can recommend!). I appear to be a “soft autumn.” This is devastating, since I love bright colors, jewel tones, and berries and burgundies. I imagine you’re all crying for me, mostly out of confusion. Supposedly I’m “low contrast” and so should wear muted things, and am neutral-warm so I shouldn’t wear cool tones (like reds with blue in them, hence berry / burgundies). I am, shall we say, not a muted person.

I kind of think this is right though, and broadly predicts what looks good on me (though I maintain I look great in many jewel tones)

Anyway the problem with lipstick is that I don’t know how to tell what looks good, and what, I’m going to try on 20 lipsticks? So I thought about coordinating something with friends again but then got into a frenzied state one evening and decided to ask none other than our local gal pal, ChatGPT. 

We went through almost every lipstick. I would take a picture of the bottle with the name, a selfie and a mirror picture. And it gave it to be straight (I mean, I think it doesn't totally understand the situation. It was sometimes inconsistent, but broadly very consistent and willing to tell me when things look terrible on me.)

So I love this lipstick. And I think it looks kinda good and vampy in the mirror picture. But in the selfie, I think chat’s just right

This shade is objectively pretty… but it’s not doing your face any favors.

Matte Flirty is a cool berry-plum, and on your complexion — which has warm-neutral undertones — that coolness fights you a little. The overall effect:

Devastating. So we did it again, and again and again. 

And I finally got (at least a facsimile of) the quick evaluation I always wanted. 

And did that clear everything up? Not a bit - ok, warm, so oranges? No, too orange. I buy what’s described as a universally flattering warm leaning red Revlon, it looks insane. I go to r/makeupaddicts, it’s very clear Mac Chili would be perfect for me. I go try it in store. This ain’t it.

I make friends with two random women in Mac and even they have more questions: Are you going for a French girl aesthetic? What would you wear this with? Nothing is as simple as “does it look good on me.” I try on many shades of red and find one I think is good and another, recommended by one of the women, which I think is bold but works. They’re on sale, I buy them both.

I’ve already set aside at least 12 lipsticks I want to get rid of (anyone want some lipsticks? Especially if you’re cool-toned, or can pull off brighter oranges than me?). I have an airtable of them.

So now I think I have...3-6 lipsticks I actually think probably are actually right for me? In red, mostly. Would be great to have a pink. Dusty pink, I guess. Maybe some liners? Maybe brown-red? But now this is at least mildly exciting instead of overwhelming. Also I’ve decided I need to try things on because nothing looks the same as it’s supposed to. Maybe I’m a special protagonist snowflake.

I at least do know what lipsticks stay on a long time, that used to be what I optimized for, and maybelline super stay knows what it’s doing.

I also don’t believe in universally flattering anymore.

Nails

Ugh, nails. I used to own like 25 nail polishes. Again, ipsy life, and grabbing whenever I saw something fun in a drugstore. Probably again I was largely the victim of never wanting to spend more than $10 on nail polish, but good lord is it annoying to wait, and it always chips, and the 1 minute dry chip worse, and top coat and bottom coat don’t help, and again if I knew what I was properly doing this probably wouldn’t happen but I don’t and I don’t want to spend money so sue me.

I thought manicures might help but those people treat your cuticles like they’ve hurt their mother, and they’re expensive and no thanks.

My friend swears by press ons, and she’s my influencer, so I tried those, and they’re good, but I get such an urge to pop them off after a week, and they come off if I do too much with my hair.

Another friend swears by BIAB, build in a bottle, but I never got around to figuring that out.

But at a birthday party, a friend had bought a gel kit, and we were all doing each others’ nails. This worked *great*. Looked good, bright, stayed for two weeks, didn’t look as bad when they came off (like it looks weird to have one nail missing polish but IMO less bad than chipping). 

After a while of having that in the back of my mind I'm asking a friend whose friend is some kind of expert on the topic whether the UV light was enough of a risk to me I bought this gel set. So far, so love, though chat did roast me on whether I was doing it right.

Concealer

Man I still don’t know what I’m doing here. I’ve tried many a color corrector and random concealers. I keep hearing “if you have very purple undereyes, peach will fix it” but don’t those both have red in them? Isn’t yellow the opposite of purple? Anyway it’s been a relief to actually decide that I’m not (just) sleep deprived or (just) bad at makeup, I actually do have darker undereyes than average. Not my fault! Anyway I’ll figure this out at some point. Or I won’t. 

Foundation:

I was a big fan of revlon colorstay for a while, now I’m all about:

Top: wet n wild Photo Focus Dewy Foundation (Cream Beige)

For sometimes: L’Oreal Infallible Pro-Matte (I’m not at home, don’t remember my shade)

Tried out because I needed to buy one on vacation and it turned out to be good actually: Maybelline Fit Me (I think in 220, Which looks too yellow for me, but then I think it looks good? But maybe I’m delusional). 

I don’t know why I’ve had more luck with foundation than other things. Maybe it’s clearer if it’s bad.

Other

I barely wear blush and never contour or use bronzer. Don’t know what I’m doing with any of that. I now use a powder religiously because I think it makes My foundation lasts longer, but I don't really think that hard about the color. Maybe I should be using a translucent powder, too? And do those setting sprays actually work?

High level takeaways?

I don’t think I have them.

Probably I should have just gone to a Sephora and asked them a long time ago, but it’s hard to trust them to answer all your questions properly.

Quantity might not be a substitute for getting it actually right.

I’m probably still wrong about a bunch of this.

But I did do the best eye look of my life recently (and oh, shocker of shockers, blowdrying your hair makes it look better)