Episode 38: WTF Is Stage Makeup? (And How to Actually Do It)

Intro and Announcements

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2:04 — Understanding Basic Stage Makeup

• Basic stage makeup reference photo
• Another one

5:17 — Tips and Tricks for Eye Makeup

9:17 — Foundation and Contouring Techniques

14:21 — Applying Lashes and Lips

• One Size Setting Spray
• Duo Lash Glue

18:48 — Final Touches and Makeup Removal

• Maybelline Superstay
• NYX XXL
• Haus Labs Lip Lacquer

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to The Aerial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here.

unknown 0:36

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to the Arial Alchemist episode number 38. Today we're talking makeup. I thought it made sense. Costuming, makeup. If you're watching on Patreon, you are seeing the same background as last week because I am batch recording. Because by the time you hear this, I leave tomorrow for Italy. But in where I'm at right now, I still have a few weeks left. So I'm batch recording, getting it all done so that if I cannot bring my microphone with me, you will still have podcasts to listen to while I'm gone. So so yeah. So by the time you hear this, fleur starts in three days, I think. Is that right? Anyways, it's fine. It's fine. I'm so excited for all of it. That makes sense because it's an overnight flight. So I lose a day. That's that's what's happening. Here we are. While I'm gone, uh circ and spook tickets will go on sale. That is August 8th at the Savoy in Denver. And to get first access first, first access will go to my patrons on Patreon. So uh if you if you want first access there, and then next access goes to Newsletter Peeps. So those are your options. I'll put the links in the in the show notes so that you can sign up for those for first access to Circ and Spook, our annual gala at the Savoy. We had a blast last year. We called it Circ and Sip last year, but this year we're getting a little spooky with it. So it's gonna be a good time. I'm looking forward to that when I get back from Italy. It will come very quickly, I am sure. So let's jump in. We're talking makeup today. I love makeup. I love makeup because I I realized this recently. It's glamour magic. Yeah, it's magic. That's why I love it. Uh you put on makeup and you get to be somebody different or or more yourself. At any rate, you get to choose how you present yourself to the world and choose how people will perceive you, which I think is so cool. That is magic for the record. So, and that's probably why I've been in some sort of performing arts essentially my entire life, whether it be theater or dance or aerial, here we are. Because I get to wear all sorts of wild makeup and not feel any sort of way about it. So if you are a performer, you are going to be checking with your director, whether it's uh for a show or for a gig of what they want your makeup to look like. And I'm not gonna get into all of it because that is huge. That is huge. If there are specific things you want me to talk about that maybe I've done, if you've seen them on my socials throughout the years, we haven't done a ton of wild makeup for In the Wings yet. We've done vampire stuff, which we'll do again, and some Star Wars stuff. Everything else has been basic stage makeup. And I that's what I'm gonna talk about today because I think it's really important to know what that is and how to do it. Because that is kind of the go-to. So if you check with your director or your producer and they say basic stage makeup, and you go, What the fuck is that? Here's here we go. We're jumping in. Basic stage makeup is a nice base. We're gonna have our foundation, we're gonna have our blush, bronzer, contour. It doesn't have to get that deep for everything. It depends on you and your look. But I'm gonna go like full glam. What did I tell someone recently? It's basically basic stage makeup is full glam for like a night out, is what it feels like. But the eyes are typically just some sort of neutral shadow. We're not going super smoky or super dramatic. It's just usually warm shadows like browns and taups and that sort of thing on the eyes, and then a nice rosy cheek and a solid lip. And the lip could be any sort of color. You could ask your director if they care. For gigs, I think a lot of time they don't, where it'll be like just match your costume and here's your costume. So, you know, if you I'm trying to think of what wouldn't work. Red lip typically works with anything because a red lip always, always on point, right? But just making sure that if you have like a dark moody, that's that's what I'm gonna say. If you have like a dark moody costume, maybe it's sort of like a jewel-toned, you're probably not gonna do a hot pink lip with that. Maybe you're gonna go more jewel, jewel-toned. Anyways, you're keeping it pretty basic, I guess. Because it's basic stage makeup. I will see if I can just put a link to just a picture of what basic stage makeup looks like or a couple of options um in the show notes. But you can also Google it and you'll get a feel for it. It's not exactly one thing. Like you must have these four colors on your eyes, and you have to have this kind of blush and this kind of lip. It's not like that, but yeah. So let's get into my tips and tricks that I've gotten over the years and just playing, just playing with makeup. And there's probably I'm gonna say things that people are gonna be like, What? That's not how you do it. Guess what? We all do it differently. You find a way that works for you. I'm not judging the way you do yours, you don't judge the way I do mine. I'm gonna give you tips, you can try them. And they may work for you and they may not. My first tip is to look up what your eye shape is and how to accentuate it the best. We all have different eyes. I think we all get shame for whatever it is as women, which is dumb, dumb. I have like partially hooded eyes, mostly hooded eyes, not super exaggerated hooded. Christine, we've talked about this a lot. I don't think she'll mind me saying this. She's got deep set eyes. She's got a whole different thing to work with than I do. Um, I have a hard time with certain types of cut creases and where to put my shadow at on my eyelids, because if I put it where my real crease is, you'll never see it. So I actually have to put it above my crease. Other people who don't have hooded eyes don't have to do that. Um, Christine has been looking up ways to accentuate hers the way that she wants them to be accentuated. And notice that I'm trying to say, like, the way it looks the best. Do your makeup how you want to do your makeup, like how it makes you feel good, period, in all of life, whether for the stage or not. If you don't feel good in it, then it's not doing its job. Your its job is to make you feel good in whatever that looks like in whatever way. And and if if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I don't think that there's like one good way, one pretty way, one anything way when it talk when we're talking about art, and makeup is a part of art for the record. That's why they call them makeup artists. I know I'm yelling at you, and you didn't even argue with me. But here we are. I'm gonna get off my soapbox now because I think we're on the same team. Here we go. So look up your eye shape, your face shape, and for contouring and like how and then play. And then play. I think people are very scared to do makeup or can be. There's I feel like people land in two buckets. The people who are like, yeah, let's play with a makeup and see what happens. And then the people are like, ooh, I could never do that. And I'm in the bucket of like, yeah, let's play with see what happens. And I tr I have a hard time understanding the people in the other bucket because I'm like, yo, we just wipe it off. If you don't like it, you just wash it off. It's so far from that big of a deal. It's supposed to be fun. It's far from a big deal. So my biggest tip and trick is to start doing it. Play with different ways of doing it. Look at a tutorial on TikTok and try it. And if it looks bad, take it off and do it the way that you like. And all you've lost is a little bit of time. But you've gained, you've gained some knowledge and you've gained some skills. Yeah. So the first thing that I do is clean and moisturize my face. You clean and you're moisturized your face. Huge. It makes the face primer optional, in my opinion. I still use primer for gigs because it makes me feel better about my life. But clean your face, moisturize it. And then let the moisturizer moisturize. So let it set in. So what I do is I clean it out and moisturize, and then I start with my eyes for lots of reasons. Because of fallout is the big thing. And what does fallout mean? That means like when you're putting your eyeshadow on, whatever falls off your brush and lands on your little upper cheekbones, now that's fallout. And if you've already done your foundation, now you've messed all of that bit up. Yeah. So I do my eyes first. Because then I don't have to worry about it. Then I just wipe it off. It's not a big deal. And the other thing that's happening as I'm doing my eyes is my moisturizer is moisturizing. And it's setting in and it's it's soaking into my skin so that my foundation and primer and everything doesn't soak into my skin and then I have to put extra layers on because I don't love that. That's not my favorite. So eyes first, because the fallout for me, this is my this is my order and this is the way I get things done quick. Because when you're um at a show or at a gig, sometimes you don't got a lot of time um because you're running late, because traffic was bad, and you know, all sorts of things, right? Um the other thing that I do, if you're looking for like a really nice sharp cat eye line with your eyes, I use scotch tape and it when you first pull it out, it's very sticky and you don't want it that sticky. So I'll put it on my hand and I'll take it off and then I'll put it underneath um my eye. And I use, if you're on the Patreon, you can see what I'm doing with my fingers. But if you're just listening on the on the Spotify or on the Apple Podcast or whatever, you cannot. So I'm gonna try to explain this as best I can. But I take the tape and put it on on like along my under my water line on the bottom lid, right? And I take that straight out. And I go more straight out because of my hooded eyes, right? Otherwise, it gives me like a crooked line. But if you don't have hooded eyes, you can go more at an angle and more of that like upward angle in the like towards your temple. So it just depends on your face shape. And then I so I put that on before I do any of my uh eyeshadow at all. And then I can put all of my eyeshadow on with that on, and then I can do my eyeliner and just follow the line of the tape, and then I take the tape off and I've got a sharp line. So sharp. So that's nice. It also like takes care of a lot of the fallout. You don't get like as much that you have to be wiping off, and then I'm also not wiping off my moisturizer as much. So I do I do enjoy the tape, the tape hack. It's one of my favorite. Then I get into my uh foundation. I don't do my lashes. I will do my mascara, but not my lashes. Yeah? Like if I'm doing falsies. So I'll do everything on my eyes minus the false lashes. Then I pop into my base, my foundation. So I put my foundation on, contour and blush, and uh highlighter if I'm using highlighter. I really love contour. I'm not a huge highlighter fan. I use a little bit, but I'm not quite cray about it. Um, some people are, but I'm more of a matte girly. So you can do highlighter as like matte too. And then that's when I'm just using my concealer because my concealer, I get a shade lighter of my foundation. Let's talk about foundation real quick. Go get matched. And we're matching to our neck. We're matching to our neck. So most like Sephora Ulta, they can color match you pretty well. Make sure that you're looking at it, like go outside, have them match you, and then go outside in the daylight and make sure it still looks right on you because things look weird under the lights in the store. So test it out. And we're matching to our our necks because we're covering up our face. We want it to match the whole thing. Yeah. Contour, you can follow, like, there's a whole bunch of things you can look at on YouTube and TikTok of how to contour. Basically, what it's doing is it's making ever anything you put contour on makes it look like it's hollowing out. So things that you want to be hot more hollow, like underneath your cheekbones so that you look more snatched. In your temples, so you look more snatched. If you've got a large forehead and you don't enjoy it, then up against your hairline. I love underneath my chin. It gives you that illusion that you there's no double chin or sagginess happening. So that you look more snatched. If you want to look more snatched, I don't care. If you don't, then put your contour somewhere else. And there may be, again, there's times for this. Like that not for basic stage makeup usually, but if you're playing a spooky creature, you may want to use this to your advantage in another way, right? So that's what contour is doing is it's making things go in. Um, highlight is popping things out. Yes, bronzer is warming things up. Bronzer, contour, not the same thing. Contour should be like a cool tone thing. Bronzer is a warm tone thing. We can get into that another day. If you don't know what I mean by that, I'm happy to talk more about it. And then blush, a little bit of blush. And people do that in different ways. You can decide how you like to do it. I like to do it up in my temples and bring it down a little bit towards the apples of my cheeks, but I don't get into the apples of my cheeks because I feel like it drags me down and makes me look older than I am. But if I keep it high on my cheekbones, it makes me look more snatched and I like that. With foundation contour blush, I like to use cream of everything, uh cream or liquid. And then anything we use as cream, then we put a powder over it. So then I also have similar colors of powders or a translucent if you don't have it, it's totally fine. You don't need to go spend a million dollars for the record on any of this. And if you want me to give you tips on the drugstore ones that I like, because there's a lot of them, you do not need to spend a lot of money on makeup. I want to be very clear, especially stage makeup. Don't need to spend a lot of money. You can if you want to and you have the means, but you don't have to. So translucent powder sets it. Yeah. Then, then I haven't figured out what order I like. I definitely do powder. And then I do sometimes I'll do my lashes and my lips and then setting spray, but sometimes I'll do powder setting spray, then lashes and lips. And I haven't found that it makes a difference either way. It's just whenever I remember to do the setting spray, which is sometimes like very last, and sometimes I look at it and I'm like, you're gonna forget to do that later. Do it now. So setting spray after you've powdered will seal everything in and keep it there. And my favorite, which is kind of pricey, um, but there are drugstore versions, but my favorite favorite is the one size settings, like 24-hour, whatever matte setting spray. They also make a glitter one, which is super fun. But why I love it, you it does not move. Once you spray that, it doesn't move. And I can attest to this because I have done a photo shoot after using it where they were I was being pelted in the face with a garden hose for like an hour. And I came inside and my makeup was still on. All of it. It was wild. So I do let I'll link that one. It is pricey. You do not have to get that one. There are much cheaper ones that um you can get. A little does go a long way though. So it does last you a while. So there's that. Lashes. So lashes and lips are last, and so and lips are last last. Lashes are last for me just because they're kind of a pain in the butt and and they're not super comfortable, you know, usually. So depending on what kind of lashes I'm wearing, you know, I'll if you're new to lashes, do them like play an extra time. Now, my lash tips. Uh, the glue is is the game changer, and the best glue that I can find is the duo eyelash glue that's the green one. And when I say green, it's got green on the packaging. I'll link it for you, don't worry. But it says it says duo in green and not duo in pink or blue. It's not the same. It's not the same. It's gotta be in green. The other ones will work, but they're more just like regular eyelash glue. Why I like this uh eyelash glue so much, and by the way, I use this if I need to like, if I want to put rhinestones on my face, you use this glue. It's great. It dries clear. Um, it goes on kind of uh milky white and then it turns like a slight blue color when it's tacky. That's the key with lashes. The glue must be a little tacky when you're gonna put it on. So this tells you, and it's sticky. Once it goes on, it is on and it is not moving. And that is what I love about it because I don't like it when they move. If you're new to lashes, get that and then get lash clusters instead of strips. The clusters look scary because you're like, ugh, but they are so much harder to mess up. You can just plop them all in. You can, I like to go more underneath than above, but you can do either, start with above, start with under, whatever feels comfortable for you, and then build them from the outside and then work your way in. Because you'll notice that you maybe only need two or three clusters and you feel like it's enough for you. And there's they come in different lengths, so you can play with different lakes and start with the longer ones on. I like to do, you can do it however you want. No one cares. It's however you want to do it. But I like to do longer on the outside of my eye and then go a little bit shorter as I work my way in. Um so you can do that way, or you could do another way. Again, play with it. It doesn't last forever. You can take them off. It's fine. But I think that when you start with those clusters, you get used to putting things into your eyelashes and you stop flitting your eyelid about while trying to apply them. Once you get good at those, then you can move on to the full lash strips, and then you'll be used to doing it. And the way I like doing lash strips, make sure that they um fit, that they're not usually they're too long. So um, I've only found one brand that I don't need to cut for me. Um, but most people have to cut a couple off the edge. You want to cut off the outer edge, not the inner edge, just FYI of the lash. And then I personally, we all have our different ways, so you'll find your way. I personally like to start with the center and get the center where I want it, and then I tap down the outside and then I tap down the inside. And what I do is I I think I I just use my fingers. Some people will use uh tweezers or whatnot, the or lash tweezers. I don't it doesn't work for me, but I plop them on with my fingers and then I take my tweezers and then I push the inside corner in to sit where I want, and then kind of adjust with my fingies if I need if I need to use my fingers a little bit. So that's what I do. I also curve my uh my lashes before I put them on to like roll them back and forth so that they're nice and like curved more than what they come in the pack. So those are my lash tips. Then lips, lips are last. My favorite lipsticks are like the matte long wear staying. I like the Maybelline Superstay. It's like 11 bucks or everything's so expensive now. It might have gone up. But, anyways, the Superstay Matte Wear Ink, I think is what it is. I'll link things for you. I'm not paid by any of these people, by the way. This is just the stuff that I've used over the years that I like. No one's paying me yet. If they want to, happy to take your money. So when you're using those like super long wear, there's a NYX one, like the XXL lingerie. That one's pretty good too. I think the Maybelline's my favorite. Yeah. That one I really like. You'll swipe them on, let them dry for uh, I don't know, about 15 seconds, let them dry down, and then I do like a quick blot and then they don't move all night. But I do lips last if you're eating, drinking, make sure any oil's gonna take off these lipsticks. So if you're eating a burger, your lipstick is going to come off. So eat something with a fork so that you can bypass your lips if you've already done your lips, or just wait to do them until you're done that and then bring a straw. Bring a straw so you don't mess up your your lips for for drinking your water. What else? The other, if you like shiny, the house labs, they just brought it back. The atomic shape lip blacker, that one's fantastic if you want a shiny long wear. I love house labs because I love, I love Lady Gaga. Love me, love me some gaga. That one you do have to follow the directions on it because I hated it at first. It was smearing everywhere, and I was like, what is this? It's all over my face when I'm eating. So that one you have to shake it really well, then you put it on, and then you have to hold your lips apart. Do not let them touch. I think it's 30 seconds. 30 seconds. I'll let it go. I make sure it's really dry. And then, but it doesn't feel dry. That's the weird bit because it is shiny. So yeah, I like that one. And they they discontinued it for a while and I saw it's back now. So it's a good one. Then my last thing, because we're getting, we're getting, we've we've talked. We've talked about the makeup. Can you tell I really like makeup? I do enjoy it. The last thing is that please remember if you're gonna be on stage, it doesn't need to be anywhere near perfect for stage. So don't get crazy about if your eyelashes are even, your eyeliner's even, if there's your lipstick's not quite right. No one will be able to tell, especially if you're on stage. And most gigs, honestly, no one's getting as close as you are in the mirror. So when you're when you're getting frustrated, step back and look at the big picture and and take it all in before you freak out that it's not working. Because it's never gonna be even from side to side, because we are not symmetrical creatures, right? And one of the lovely, the lovely phrases that I picked up off of some some TikTok reel somewhere is when it comes to your eyes, they're sisters, not twins. So your liner is going to be sisters, not twins. I say that to myself all the time. The other thing that I say to myself is trust the process. If you are in the middle of your eyeshadow and you're like, what is happening? Trust the process and keep going. A lot of times, if you add more, for whatever reason, it works. Add more, blend more, it works. I've had people just comment on my regular everyday makeup that it looks, oh my gosh, it looks so good. I could never do my makeup like that. First of all, yes, you could. You just have to play with it and try. And that day, I think I had, I like thought about it. I was like, oh, I have seven colors. And this is another great, great tip that I didn't think of until just now. If you get an eyeshadow palette, all of those colors are meant to go together. So you can play with any of them in any orientation, in any way, and they're meant to go together. So just keep adding them. Just add them. And it adds depth, is what it does. It will add depth and interest to your art, right? So yeah, that's all I have to say about that. And then at the end of the night, double cleanse your face. What is double cleansing? You are going to start with an oil-based cleanser. That's going to take off any waterproof makeup you have, any oil-based makeup you have. It's going to help get it off of your face. So you start with that and then you go in with another non-oil-based cleanser and wash that off. And sometimes you might need to triple quadruple cleanse depending on what is all on your face. It might take some time. Another thing that I like is my cellar water is fantastic. Also put that in your kit with some Q tips because it's great for like if you just smudge something, it's great for like a touch-up when you need it. My cellar water is fantastic for taking off makeup, if you don't know. And people like swear by certain brands, I think the Bioderma people love. I've used it, it's great, but I also use the cheaper versions and I don't notice a difference. So if you do, that's cool, but I don't, I don't notice any difference. And if you heard me say oil-based cleanser and you went, uh, no, that's fair. My skin hates oil. I can't have oil in any of my moisturizers or serums or anything like that. But I do need it to like get the stuff off. And then that's why I follow it up and then I get the oil off of my face. And it can be as simple as coconut oil. I love coconut oil as my oil-based cleanser to get all of my eye, especially eye makeup, off. And then I'll usually need to put some micellar water on a Q-tip and get all up in my waterline and in my tight line. And your tight line is your upstairs water line in case you were wondering. Because I've learned that a lot of people don't know what that is. And here's another bonus tip because I am full of them apparently. We're gonna go backwards to eyeballs, but you can put eyeliner on your waterline and tight line. And if you put it on your tight line, your upstairs water line, your upper lid one, it makes your lashes look a lot thicker um without having any eyeliner on. So yeah, that's that's a nice hack. And before you do that, you should neutralize your waterline and tight line by taking some micellar water and a q-tip and just wiping it so that it's clean before you put on your eyeliner. So there you have it. That's all I have. That's all I got. If you have requests for future episodes, if you have questions about this, I'd love to hear them. I'd love to love to answer all of your questions and let you know the thanks. And thank you to my patrons on Patreon for supporting me in nonsense like this. It's not nonsense, and I fully love that you are here with me for this journey and making it happen so that I can pass on these silly little tricks to other performers. Love that. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting us in all of the ways. Always for future episodes, or you want to just share anything at all with me, anything that you've been up to in your life, you can hit me up on all of the social medias at In the Wings Ariel or on Patreon at in the wings Ariel. I'm here for it. And that is all for this week. I hope you have a beautiful week. I'll see you next week. This has been the Ariel Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.