the other night randall and i crossed the curse of the golden flower off of our nextflix queue. i thought it was gorgeous, although super chinese. it was mostly just a high-end big-budget version of the soundstage chinese soap operas my mom would watch as a kid. but like i said it was gorgeous. i was particularly struck by gong li's makeup. the shiny gold smattered lips were amazing! it's also been a while since i played dressup makeuptime, and well i was inspired.
i tried to recreate the whole look, and not to toot my own horn, i thought it looked pretty cool. but then i tried taking pictures of it, and remembered oh right. for photos you need a shit-ton of makeup and good lighting. i don't have the lighting (seriously the lighting in my house makes it like a dim yellow cave), but i did have more makeup, so i slathered it on. this ruined the look a bit, and the lips came out cakey. i smoothed it out with some gloss, but then it was too smooth so more gold came out and then cake, and well down the rabbit hole i went. the eyes came out okay, but well i don't have nearly as much space between eyelid and eyebrow. so i also kept slathering on the color. i should've just gotten better lighting the first time.
and for reference, gong li, who is a bajillion times more gorgeous than i will ever be:
