✨ My Gyaru Makeup Then & Now ⌚

 

Hi angels! I hope you're doing well today. I wanted to share a little update on how my makeup has progressed over the years. I was thinking about doing this for the new year but I got caught up in all those lens reviews and the point focus mini-series I didn't have time to edit pics for this 😭

I wanted to do this post to show that we all start somewhere and that you can always find ways to improve no matter how long you've been involved in gyaru for. I know it's really hard to keep going sometimes especially with all the hate you can get online, but as long as you are diligent and kind to yourself you can definitely achieve your gal goals! You just have to trust the process and focus on doing what makes you happy.

With this post I also want to break the misconception that veteran gals think they are better than newbies and that they are just rude grumpy boomers who actively try to be hostile and discourage gals who don't achieve the same level of makeup skill as them. 

Everyone gets frustrated and has challenges no matter how long they've been in gyaru. Vets were new once too and the way they push newbies comes from what they wish they had when they started out. I'm sure most vets would agree that we all want to see all gals reach their fullest potential and live their best life, so as much as concrit or advice can be rather blunt and maybe even hurtful sometimes, it's not coming from a place of willful malice and I really wish that baby gals and newbies would stop seeing it this way 😓

Anyways I wanted to start off by showing off a quick review of what my 2021 looked like. I used this template from Lizzie's blog if you wanted to try it yourself!

I hadn't really been doing anything outside of my comfort zone until I started getting internet hate in the summer and early fall so I pushed myself a bit more and I'm glad I did because I ended up really falling in love with gyaru and makeup in general.

To be clear I wasn't taking the hate to heart but rather it reaffirmed in my mind that I was in a rut and I wasn't doing enough to really try anything new or different because I wasn't confident in my makeup skills. I invested in new makeup and started watching any and all makeup videos to improve my application techniques so I could build up my confidence and honestly it did wonders 🤗

I have a small collection of makeup collages in the gyaru resources tab on this blog but I thought it would be helpful to make a timeline of my makeup progression so you could see how long it took for me to identify the things I wanted to improve and how much experimenting I did to get comfortable with my makeup now.

I don't have a lot of pics from before like 2014 and of course I only recently got really invested in gyaru makeup around 2020/2021 so there's a lot more pictures from the last 2 years than anything.

Like I mentioned before, I have a problem exploring outside of my comfort zone. Mostly because I never had a lot of makeup so I stuck to the 2 neutral palettes I owned and avoided color entirely. I also found an eyeshape that I liked so I thought that was "gal" enough but sadly being comfortable means growing stagnant and I wasn't doing myself any favors that way so I wanted to change that.

First I tried to use more colors and played around with placement (last pic of 2020 and 2nd pic of 2021. I was comfortable with this since it wasn't a huge commitment to a cut crease or something like that but I definitely wanted to use color more after I tried this.

Next I tested out different types of droops by copying makeup from popular gal models (first 3 pics in the 3rd row). None of these really worked for me (even though it was fun to do) so I went back to colors. I started working with more colors I never used to/actively avoided but stuck with eyeshapes I knew I liked. This was so much fun and it make me really appreciate how creative you could be if you wanted to.

here are some of my personal favorite looks 😍

Now it's 2022 and tbh I've sort of gotten bored again and I'm back in a slump because I got it in my head that having makeup you like or are comfortable with is bad. 

Not sure how I'm going to get over this one but I think to live more in line with my new goals this year I'm just not going to think about it too much. I can take my time and enjoy the progress I made in the last year before I push myself for more and I won't let anyone tell me otherwise because this journey is for me, myself, and I 💖

In an effort to get motivated to do makeup again I turned back to makeup that I did when I was younger for inspo recently. I wanted to see how it would turn out with my skills now and I actually really like it!! I'm kind of sad I never pushed myself earlier since I probably could've pulled this off like 2 years ago if I just committed 🤡

Inspo pics (from 2016?? pls don't come for me I didn't know what contouring was and I had really botched brows lmao):

I really liked how tight this eye shape was. It was a little hard for me to do again because I'm used to doing namida bukuro make now and this didn't really leave me room to do that since it was so smoky.

I know you can't really see any eyeshadow but I remember what I used then and it was basically 2 shades of brown with some a gold and white pearl shadow (for lid topping and highlighting respectively) so that's what I used 😅

This is what I ended up with:

I hope you enjoyed this post~ I know it was a touch more personal than most of my usual content but I think it's important to show that everyone starts somewhere and just because you're not where you want to be, it doesn't mean you can't get there eventually.

You're not alone in your journey but you're 1000% in charge of your own progress. You really get back what you put in so if you actively ad consistently  invest in yourself, the possibilities are truly endless. When you get frustrated remember to be kind to yourself, take your time and trust the process. Do your research, practice as much as you can, get concrit from experienced gals, and don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone every now and then! Before you know it you'll be doing things your past self could've only dreamed about 💖

Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you again soon! ✨