How to cover beard shadow

I had a request on how I cover black beard shadow, so I figured I'd do a write up on it. Just as a reference, I have that really thick Sicilian black hair that leaves beard shadow even after a close shave and this works well for me.

First off, make sure you are using a good razor. Personally I use the Venus razors (http://www.gillettevenus.com/en_US/products/refillables/embrace/index.jsp). The one I use is a 5 blade. Start with a close shave, then a good moisturizer. You also want to use a primer, which helps smooth the skin. I have a friend (another crossdresser) who developed and sells a moisturizer/primer made specifically with the crossdresser/trans person in mind. I use this moisturizer myself every morning. Here's a link if anyone is interested http://www.hisinhers.com/herculanm-facial-products. And, no I'm not getting paid to say this. ;)

Next I follow up with a liquid foundation to even out my skin tone. I have managed to match my foundation and my beard cover pretty closely. Getting a good match is important so everything is seamless. The beard cover that I use is from a company called colortration (http://www.colortration.com/). It isn't cheap at $37 for a small container, but one of these lasts me about 6 months with me using it on average 3x a week. It covers me all day even with my black beard shadow. If you aren't sure what shade to get, I recommend the sampler set they sell. Also, if you call them, they have trans friendly staff and are extremely helpful in choosing the proper shades to try. If you have a foundation that you use and like now, they will try and match their shade to what you use. I found colortration through a theatrical makeup site. This is actually one of the recommended coverups used in TV and movies.

To apply the colortration, you want to use a small stiff makeup brush. Go easy with this stuff as a little goes a long way, even better than products like dermablend. You don't need to apply it very heavily at all to get complete coverage. Also, you might want to get the mixing vial they sell. It makes dispensing and applying the makeup much simpler a process. If I plan to be out more than 8 or so hours, I will make sure I have a little extra colortration makeup in the vial and I mix it with a drop of moisturizer. I then take my small makeup brush and the vial and toss them in my purse and it works really well to do a touch up later in the day if I need to.

I use a tinted powder over it all when I am done just to make sure that there is no unevenness to the shades of makeup. By following this process I can go for 12+ hours and rarely even need a touch up. The makeup even holds up under flash photography, which tends to penetrate most makeup and reveal the shadow underneath.

Christian witch trials

OMG, do you think that now they will now what we feel like when they do this to us???

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1398206

Passing leads to acceptance

I had an interesting day today at Chuck E Cheese. We went to a birthday
for the 7 year old daughter of friends of ours. Our friends know and
accept Heather and have no issue with it at all. Since I was in a
Heather mood and it was due to hit 100+ today I wore a nice black &
white sun dress and flat sandals for the occasion. We were the first
ones there and our friends arrived a few minutes after us. My friend
(guy) walks over to me and says "Hey Sister" and gives me a hug. His
normal greeting is "Hey bro" when it's a Joe day, so this was expected. A short while later his parents arrived. Now, his parents met us last
year for the same occasion, but it was a Joe day then. His mom comes
over next to me and introduces herself. I figured she just didn't
remember me from last year. I was wrong. I introduced myself as Heather
and she commented that it'd been a few years since she saw me last and
I'd changed a bit (I found out later she confused me with another
Heather). I replied "well, last year I wasn't quite dressed like this."
She looked at me kind of funny and then the light bulb went on. She said
"You're Joe." I told her that I was. She made a comment that I wasn't
quite so fully dressed "like this" last year. I told her I tended to go
androgynous most of the time. She then commented that I looked good as a
woman.

After the party we went back to the grandparents place to open presents
since the birthday girl wanted our daughter to come over for a bit and
it was only a few miles away. Everyone was fine with how I was dressed.
I know grandpa knew who I was and my appearance didn't phase him in the
least. We had a bit of conversation while we were there. Grandma
referred to me as Joe but the whole time I could see it was not big deal
to her either. I would call this passing that turned to acceptance since
I believe she saw me as a woman until I told her who I really was.

Our little girl is growing up

Is it a bad thing that my 9 year old daughter is starting to wear my
girl clothes and they fit?

Google+

This is to all my friends. If you're on google+, let me know and i'll add you to my list. If not, I can send an invite if you want to get on. It;'s so much better than facebook and I'm definitely planning on using Google+ more than FB.

It's been quiet

I haven't been blogging much because not much has been happening around here.

New toy.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Memoirs of a Geisha

I just finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha. The movie has been one of my favorites for quite some time, and I have to say that the movie followed the book very closely. Now I need to watch the movie again. :)