I let the boys in my house do my make up for Kasbah

I’ll be the first to say, I’m not a make up goddess. So long as you can’t see the sacks under my eyes that scream “I haven’t got my life together”, and my lips aren’t chapped to all hell, I feel like I’ve achieved my goal.

With this lax attitude towards my own face, I thought that it couldn’t hurt to let my male flatmates experiment with my appearance for Kinky Kasbah. I’ll get facepaint there anyway – what could be the harm? Turns out, quite a lot.

#goals

My two guy flatmates, Mike and Sid, were more than up for the challenge – I perhaps misguidedly decided to start it after we’d all already been drinking somewhat, making them more clumsy and creative than ever before.

Only recognising one item out of my rack of make up, Mike began by putting on about a kilo of lipstick on, around and inside my mouth. Having never eaten my own lipstick before, this was a fun new experience for me, and colour coordinating teeth to lips is something that I really think should be catching on. Who wants white teeth when you can have pink?

Having said lipstick shoved into my mouth (note: INTO, not just around), and watching your beloved eyebrow pencil be whittled down to the point of no return was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

Don’t know what I’m getting myself into

Next up was a pretty even, if bizarrely thick, coat of foundation. I explained the difference between brushes and sponges – advice which they promptly ignored and began to paint my face like I was an easel rather than a human.

Realising I’ve made a terrible mistake

They then asked what I would do next, to which I said bronzer. Bad idea – they then decided to try and counteract my intense paleness by putting spots of brown at random points across my face. Beautiful right?

Next: the eyes. Being too scared to attempt mascara (“We’re gonna blind you and then you’ll be like, so mad”), they decided to go for eyeshadow. Overwhelmed by my range of colour choices, Sid went for two: red on my left eye and blue on my right. Again, a new trend that I really think will be on the catwalk next season. This was then extended by Mike into huge circles around my eyes – “It’ll be symmetrical though, so it’s fine. I think it looks pretty good!”

Eyes are the window to the soul

Continuing the symmetry, Mike also extended my eyebrows into French moustache-style curls. If only I could grow the actual hair to match…

Seeing as they had made me look so fabulous, I decided to return the favour. I evened out Sid’s skin with foundation and highlighter – surprisingly difficult to do over stubble. They need to make a beard-friendly foundation. Mike wouldn’t let me near him – after the debacle with my eyes, I don’t think he trusted me not to get nasty.

He loves it

With my pro make up artists

Heading out to Kasbah was an experience – I got a few bizarre looks on the bus, but once I got there, everyone pretty much assumed it was the standard face paint, if a bit bigger than most people’s, that everyone gets at Kasbah. I forced my flatmates to buy drinks for me at first, refusing to go to the bar, where I’d have to show the horror that was my changed face. But eventually I got over it- Kasbah were handing out wigs that night, so if I put one of them as well, I was virtually unrecognisable.

Perfecting the art of dancing to hide my face

My friends never seemed to get over the hilarity, especially when a guy physically recoiled when I turned round and he saw my face. Good way to scare off unwanted attention in clubs though, apparently.

Taking it off was a mission and a half – having taken only 15 minutes of so to put on, it took much longer than my standard make-up to take off. The thickness of the eyebrow pencil on my forehead stayed with me until the morning, and it took two make up wipes to get rid of the extensive eyeshadow that spread onto my nose and cheeks.

All in all though, it was interesting to see what the guys thought the future of make up should be. Sid said, “It was an intriguing addition to pres”, and Mike commented that “doing a girl’s make up certainly put on an interesting twist on the standard Kasbah night out”. I’m sure they both now appreciate the trials of putting on eyeliner mid-pres, and I for one have decided to permanently hide my eyeshadows from the guys in future.