BrownGal Makeup

Finding nude or natural looking lipsticks when you are person of color, especially a person with brown skin is always a challenge.  The lipsticks that are usually marketed and sold as "nude" colors, almost always look pasty and washed out on my brown skin.  "Nude" lipsticks either show up against my brown skin as a brown grey color or as a white color.  I'm always on the lookout for a lipstick that has a dual purpose of looking great on my brown skin and fit well with a natural makeup look.  For my natural makeup looks, I mostly prefer shades of brown and I'm always on the look out for the perfect brown or nude lipstick.   One of the lipstick that I use frequently is Charlotte Tilbury - Walk of No Shame. It was previously called Walk of Shame.  I can see why Charlotte Tilbury renamed this lipstick from Walk of Shame to Walk of No Shame.  Apart from the obvious misogynistic undertones of the term "Walk of Shame" and the fact that it is a term us...

When I got married many, many, many years ago, I was super adamant that I was going to do my own makeup.  I'm of Indian origin and I celebrated my wedding in India. In the wedding planning stage, I considered a lot of makeup artists, many who came highly recommend.   However, I found there was a disconnect between what I wanted and what the makeup artist thought was the ideal wedding makeup. Even during my makeup trials, I found that they were almost unwilling to listen to what I wanted because their perception of the 'ideal' wedding makeup. The standard Indian brides makeup look at that time was so fundamentally different to what I considered to be ideal for me. Anytime, I went in for a facial in India, the facialist would always recommend a 'light bleaching agent' as a 'cleanser' to get an 'instant glow'. This would horrify me. I could never understand why anyone would put any sort of 'bleaching agent' however mild on their FACE or any ...

I recently read an article in "The Cut" about " How to Do 'No-Makeup-Makeup' for Darker Skin tones ".  The makeup artist in the article Daniel Martin is famed for doing the wedding makeup for Megan Markle. The make up artist had some good tips in the article - Use two different foundation shades (one for the perimeter of your face and another for the inside) and blend using a blending sponge to merge the two shades together. However, I would amend this slightly to say that a lot of people with darker skin tones are slightly darker around the mouth and the chin and lighter above the nose area (i.e. lighter on the forehead and cheeks) What I'm surprised about, is some of the brands that he's used.  Dior foundation,  Laura Mercier Flawless Fusion Ultra Longwear Concealer.  These are not brands that have a range of shades for darker skin tones.  Dior - well, you know my opinion of them.  Same with Laura Mercier. There is a lack of shades for darker ...