In her blog post, image consultant Ginger Burr asks, "Are you getting dressed in the dark?" and goes on to explain how the correct lighting is so critical to achieving your look.
(Which is why I always use a lighted makeup mirror when I do my makeup.)
Ginger's post is full of valuable information and I highly recommend reading it.
Yesterday, Barbara left a comment on my “Street Style Provincetown” post.
Barbara and I go way back. She is one of my oldest friends in the trans world and is the treasurer and also coordinator of registrations and events for Fantasia Fair.
She commented, “Speaking of fashion at the fair... this year we welcome back the Master of MakeUp and Fashion Jim Bridges... who will be an integral part of this year's fashion show onstage and off!”
Jim Bridges is a Hollywood makeup artist. He gave me my first makeover at First Event in 1995.
That First Event was the first trans convention I ever attended and I was in awe the whole weekend.
After watching Jim makeover a random attendee, I was so impressed with the transformation that I made a reservation for a makeover.
His transformation of me was as impressive as the transformation I witnessed earlier. I literally did not recognize myself when he was finished.
"Is that really me?" I wondered when I looked in the mirror for the first time after the makeover.
I learned a lot about how to apply makeup during that makeover including skills that I still use today. I look forward to seeing Jim again and thanking him for helping me become the woman I am today!
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| Three "girls" from Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota look very comely in their cheerleader uniforms back in 1982. |
Forty-two new images for the high school (and beyond) Yearbook Femulations collection arrived from Starla and I uploaded them to flickr for your viewing pleasure.
There are two ways to view the newest additions:
Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z) and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)
Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.
By the way, the contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Hard Knox High School would be in the Yearbooks H set.
Last week, I posted links to slideshows of street styles in New York City during Fashion Week.
This week, Fashion Week moves across the Atlantic. Here are two slideshows (1 and 2) of street styles in London.
Above is a photo taken by Laurel of street styles in Provincetown during Fantasia Fair in 2008.
I am really jazzed about attending Fantasia Fair next month. If I can pull it off, I will take photos of the street styles in P-Town during Fan Fair and post them here.
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| Relaxing at my B&B during Fantasia Fair, October 2010 |
The Southern Comfort Conference takes place this week in Atlanta. I seriously considered attending, but after weighing all the costs, I decided not to go.
The transportation expenses broke the camel's back.
It is nearly 2000 miles roundtrip. Driving would be less expensive than flying, but driving would take a lot longer. Since this girl does not travel lightly, the expense of flying would be burdened with the added cost of whatever the airline charges for luggage. And if I wanted to get around Atlanta, a car rental would be an additional burden.
Also, as I wrote here last month, "my girl mode and boy mode must take separate vacations because my spouse does not want to vacation with my girl mode. I have no problem with that, but two vacations are not usually in the cards financially" especially if one is as expensive as the Atlanta trip likely would have been.
I was very disappointed about not going to Atlanta, but I accepted the financial realities and moved on.
Last week, my wife indicated that she does not want to go away on vacation this year because of some family health issues. She is ok with day trips, but does not want to take any extended trips away from home.
That freed up a lot of vacation funds, so I began thinking about how to spend it.
It was too late for Atlanta, but Fantasia Fair is a month away. A lot of my friends are going to Fantasia Fair this year, I need a vacation, and most importantly, I need to spend some extended time as a woman again, so I thought about attending Fantasia Fair this past weekend.
Traveling to Provincetown on Cape Cod (the site of Fantasia Fair) is a piece of cake. Pack the car, drive four hours and I am there. The only hitch might be getting a room at this late date, but when I contacted the Bed and Breakfast where I stayed last time, they had one room left, so I grabbed it.
I registered for the event yesterday and now I just have to count the days until I will be able live as the woman I am full-time for a full week.
Femulating is easier today.
One reason, according to a study mentioned in The Huffington Post, is that women are not plucking and arching their eyebrows to the extent that they had in the past, thus relieving femulators from following suit.
I held off plucking and arching my eyebrows for a long time because I thought that they would give me away. Instead of plucking, I trimmed my eyebrow to neaten the unruly mess.
After trimming, no one noticed and I assumed my eyeglasses hid my handiwork. (I always wear eyeglasses in boy mode, but never in girl mode unless I am driving.)
Since no one noticed, I began plucking my eyebrows to thin them and arch them.
When my eyebrows approximated those of actress Keira Knightley (see photo), I figured if they were feminine enough for Keira, then they were feminine enough for me. So now I just pluck and trim to maintain my Keira eyebrows.
Luiss is a male model revealed to me in today's post on Juan's The New Male Fashions For The Alternative Man.
It is available in my size, but the price is a little high ($109), so I will wait for a Nine West sale before I take the plunge.
Here is another slideshow of fashion week street styles from New York Magazine’s “The Cut.”
I discovered the following impressive wedding femulation that is too big to fit in The Femulated slot, so I am presenting it as today's post.
This story originally appeared in the December 1952 issue of Confidential.
Enjoy!
I added 21 photos to the Film and Television set of The Femulated collection on flickr.
There are two ways to view the newest additions:
Method 1: Open the Film and Television set and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)
Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.
Enjoy!
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| Two students participating in a womanless beauty pageant at Surry Central High School, Dobson NC, in 1975. |
Starla passed along 56 new images for the Yearbook Femulations collection and Aunty Marlena added 8 new ones, which I uploaded to flickr today.
There are two ways to view the newest additions:
Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z)
and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The
oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)
Method 2: Open my photostream
and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads
get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the
last page.
By the way, the contents of the Yearbook A through Z
sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos
from Hard Knox High School would be in the Yearbooks H set.
Enjoy!
(A New Yorker cartoon parody.)
This is a rerun, but it still makes me laugh!
On Saturday, Fool's Paradise hosted The Black & White Ball on Fire Island, NY. Photo galleries of this womanless extravaganza are online for your viewing enjoyment. (The photos below are four of my favorites.)
Since rising from defeat in World War II, Japan has been a leading source of innovations that have become mainstream throughout the world.
The list of Japanese innovations is long and I will not enumerate them here, but you can view this slideshow to see what I mean. (Yes - I was surprised that the Japanese invented the felt tipped pen, too.)
So which Japanese innovation is going to go mainstream next?
According to a video report from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), male-to-female crossdressing is exploding in Japan and "is becoming more mainstream in a society that once had rigid gender lines."
I was aware of Japanese femulation, blogged about it here in the past, but I had no idea it was becoming "more mainstream."
According to the ABC report, "Toshinaga Hijikata has published a series of books offering men advice about cross-dressing. Sales have now passed 130,000 copies. He says Japan is slowly learning that not all men want to be macho."
I researched Toshinaga Hijikata and found the following in an article on The Asahi Shimbun website:
"'It started with (manga and anime). I think it lowered the threshold for wearing women's clothing by attracting attention on the Internet,' says Toshinaga Hijikata, editor in chief at WAaI!, a magazine published by Ichijinsha that specializes in covering otokonoko.
"In 2007, Ichijinsha published Onnanoko ni Naritai! (I want to be a girl!), a book with information on how to dress like a woman. Subsequent books have made it into a three-volume series that has sold more than 110,000 copies.
"Hijikata says that most people who like the 'cute boys' that appear in manga and video games are mainly men, many of whom then try to be like these otokonoko.
"'They simply want to be part of the ideal female community they perceive,' says Hijikata.
"Typical fantasies are the images of young girls playing in a field of flowers or whispering secrets in the corner of a classroom, he says. The otokonoko seek out to be part of the group and the beautiful imagery they project, Hijikata says.
"'Perhaps cross-dressing is their ticket to a women-only world,' he says."
I looked for Onnanoko ni Naritai! and found 44 pages of the book on Photobucket. I also found three volumes of Hijikata's magazine, WAaI! (Boys in Skirts), online here: Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3
Gyrlgling, I found femulating Japanese males everywhere! One link led to another with still more Japanese femulators!
My head was overloaded with all this information and I was convinced that crossdressing was indeed going mainstream in Japan.
As they say at Sony, "What's good for Japan is good for the States."
Will crossdressing become more mainstream in the USA, too?
(Thank you, sissyslave4domme, for the heads-up about the ABC story.)
Last night was one of those nights! I had some unusual dreams and I actually remembered bits and pieces of some.
(I blame it all on the Chinese food I ate for dinner.)
One dream was the kind of dream that only a trans girl would dream.
Hot on the high heels of the success of the film Bridesmaids, an outfit out of Las Vegas now offers a "Vegas bridesmaids' experience" for you and your wedding entourage. Called "Bridesboys," the service is intended for the males of the wedding party and includes a complete head-to-toe male-to-female transformation before the "girls" spend the night doing Vegas.
I woke up before the transformation and bridesmaids' experience began. I hope to pick up tonight where I left off last night.
Please pass me the pork-fried rice.
