I have a small part in the play I am choreographing (Hello, Dolly and I am now a character in the parade). I tried on the costume yesterday and realized it makes me look like an adolescent girl, so I want to play that up with makeup, but I'm not really sure what to do.

I am 27 and look mid-20s in normal everyday life. I have a wig (blonde ringlets) and I always wear false eyelashes onstage. My face is very oval-shaped so I would like to try to round it out a little, so how can I do that with makeup? What sorts of colors and techniques should I be going for with eye makeup and blush? What else?

For blush, I would put it on the apples of your cheeks... think doll, not cheekbones. I would go with a pinker blush rather than a brown/red. For eyes, I would do just a minimal wing with your eyeliner, if any at all. Make sure your lower liner color isn't black, and make sure it's blended just to suggest that your have thick lashes, rather than that you're wearing liner on your lower lash line. I usually use eyeshadow with an angle brush as liner, because it's very easy to blend. As for actualy shadow, I would do normal browns, maybe just not as dark as you would for an older character. I would add some white shimmer shadow to the inner corners and brow bones as well. I'm not sure if you usually do red lips, but if you're wanting to look a bit younger I'd go with a coral, or a soft pink. As long as it goes well with the tone of blush, you're good!

Basically I'd keep it light and glowy all around. Obviously you don't want sparkles or literally GLOWING white, but you know what I mean I hope this helped somewhat and I wasn't being painfully obvious and not giving any real help, LOL

-Jo

Ok, I wasn't too far off tonight, then. I did pink blush on my cheeks (actually got a few comments about looking like a doll up close). I did browns and kept them only on the lid; most of the time I sweep it off and follow the wing of the eyeliner, but that looks a little too sophisticated for this character. I had plain white, but I left my shimmery white at home, so I'll have to remember that one tomorrow. I'll try doing brown liner/shadow on the lower lid tomorrow and see how that goes. I think I'll stick with red lipstick, though, because my costume is very... patriotic looking. I think pink or coral would clash. I'll also try to remember to take a picture tomorrow.