Written by NZINGHA for ZFACEINC,nyc

If you are wearing TOO MUCH MAKEUP …honey boo boo; you’re in drag makeup!

Ok let me get right into it straight no chaser style. Women …just were are you going with all that makeup on? I’m serious and yes, I am a Makeup Artist and dearly love makeup and what I can do with it and the art of makeup but, seriously; there is a fine line between well executed makeup and showtime!!!

And I will also say this the whole concept of “drag” is the act of men dressing as women. And lets be clear not just any woman but its usually women that are superstar celebrity status women. Not the everyday 9-5 girl, no doll…it’s the women who are dramatic, bugle bead gown wearing women who have the wind blowing in their hair when there isn’t a breeze to feel!!!

The concept of drag is the illusion of the perfectly coiffed woman; daily coiffed woman. Most real women do not feel like being coiffed all the time because it does take time, work and 💲💲💲💲! Now let’s be clear there are some women who live in the realm of the consistently coiffed, but they spend most of their life’s concentration on how it all appears. The down side to that is never have a bad day, never get sick and never have any of life’s dilemmas! The man in your life will always expect the illusion and you will have to come with nothing less than stellar…all the time!

Women you are dragging when you are a hyper version of yourself. Your eyebrows are clear up to your hairline, your lips are way overdrawn (and usually made larger than they are;this does not apply to black women because your lips usually are already full), you’re wearing 4 sets of false eyelashes on one eye! You are doing a lot! This look is usually for stage performances where lighting techniques help to soften the look and make it more natural looking. This was not made for your everyday walking down the street with no fabulous lighting to camouflage gradient lines. There is a fine line.

Some women come with a natural subtle softness to their faces and this is illusion of subtlety is recreated by men in drag by the use of contouring the face and the hiding or complete removal of facial hair (some of us women have facial hair gone wild too). The use of vibrant colors is seemingly always equated with drag makeup (although everyone loves colors and makeup manufactures sell them and Makeup Artists use them).

You know you’re dragging women when a professional Makeup Artist has to sit you in their chair to properly blend your makeup, clean up that eyeliner or declump that mascara!!! Female impersonators loved doing Tammy Faye Baker because most times she did her own makeup (you can tell the difference from her hand to a professionals hand)

Now I will say most Professional Makeup Artists have done drag makeup before and maybe all the time (that being their style and the way they see everyone). I personally know some Makeup Artists all the only style of makeup they know how to do is drag makeup and that same drag style goes on everyone’s face no matter who they are or how individual the woman is.

Have I done drag makeup before? Sure have! And more than once! It takes a certain kind of woman with a certain kind of persona to take on drag makeup and that woman is usually super confident. But that makeup has to be well blended because a woman usually naturally has a softness to her face so heavy contouring and coloring can easily be a miss. My former client Lil’ Kim was my drag makeup girl but, I always insisted on the best photographers and lighting for her looks for example this photo shoot below. Here she was shot by Photographer David LaChappelle for the cover of VIBE Magazine (1999).

My makeup sketch for Lil’ Kim for the cover of VIBE Magazine

Oh and yes this is a secret weapon, not so secret anymore…Face Tapes!!! Face tapes gives one the illusion of a sculpted up and out look. Creating a diva look where the brow goes up and out toward the hairline. Some women like the face tapes because its a non committal way to have a face lift without the plastic surgury.

Face tapes to get a lifted look

And in closing I must say this to the women who are on Instagram and YouTubers just in case you didn’t know , uuuuh you’re wearing drag makeup everyday, that’s a lot for a real everyday girl and it can be a bit scary. Period. If you’re not on stage as a performer you should tone it down or blend a whole lot better than what I’m seeing.

The End….?