In this section we'll go over what goes into female presentation from the neck up. We're going to talk about how makeup and a flattering hairstyle can help you look really cute.

Makeup is the great equalizer, in the sense that it helps people change their physical features to fit how they'd like to present themselves. It works in these three ways:

• it hides imperfections by covering them
• it shifts attention to change facial proportions
• it changes the apparent shape of features with contouring

Even if you have feminine features, makeup can help bring your presentation to the next level, so it's a pretty important skill. Your first few times will be frustrating and will take a lot of time, but with practice you can get it down to 5-10 minutes.

A typical makeup bag should have the following products:

• Foundation that matches your skintone
• Spot concealer
• Primer
• Blush
• Lipstick / Lip Stain
• Brushes (for eyeshadow, blush, optionally powder + eyeliner)
• Beauty Blender
• Dark eyeliner (gel or liquid)
• Mascara
• Eyeshadow Pallette(s)
• Eyelash Curler (if you have straight eyelashes)
• Makeup Remover

Look up tutorials on how to apply each of these products so you can get a general idea of what each product does, and how you'd apply it. For eyeliner and eyeshadow it varies between styles, so it might help to find a tutorial specific to a style of makeup you're interested in. Once you have a better understanding, we can go more into specifics in the next few sections.

When you're ready to start putting together a makeup bag, the first thing you'll want is the core essentials. The Wirecutter has thoroughly tested recommendations for eyeliner, mascara, brushes, and makeup remover that all work really well.

Foundation is a little bit trickier to recommend a specific product for, since everyone has different skintones and coverage needs, but you can drop into most makeup stores and they can help you with picking one that would suit your coverage needs and skintone. If that sounds scary, you can find makeup tutorials from people with similar skin to yours, then order samples of the foundation they use in different shades from ebay or amazon. Once you know it matches your skintone correctly and has the right level of coverage, you can buy the full product. A lot of foundations will have equivalent Maybeline shades you can look up, so once you find a product you like you can figure out matching shades for other products.

Everything else is mostly just dependent on the style of makeup you're going for, so once you have your core products selected, you can start to look at the products that those specific tutorials are recommending. Before we do that though, lets go over some theory so that we can gauge if those tutorials will work for our face.

Usually people who go through a male puberty will have a few challenge areas that they'll need to focus on in order to be gendered female. Let's go over those areas, along with specific makeup techniques that can help.

Taking good care of your skin is important, especially if you're not on hormones, and it's not too hard once you nail down a routine. At worst you won't have to use as heavy of a foundation, and at best you'll be able to skip foundation minus special occasions. If you don't know too much about skincare, that's okay. The Reddit skincareaddition wiki is a great starting point.

Foundation can be pretty important depending on how your skin is, since it evens out your skintone and hides imperfections. It's a must have for photo shoots, since cameras pick up a lot more than what most people can see. It'll also reduce the appearance of shadows by diffusing light.

There's a few different ways of hiding facial hair. The first way is to just use concealer, but sometimes it can make your makeup look cakey. Most people go for color correction instead. The idea is you can use a red pigment to cancel out the blue undertone of facial hair. You can use either a red or orange eyeshadow/lipstick, there's also some products that are made specifically for beard color correction.

Shave as closely as you can, do your typical skincare, apply primer, then apply your pigment of choice to the areas you have stubble. Finally, apply enough foundation for full-coverage on top of the pigment. It'll take some experimenting to get the amount of pigment right, aim for just enough pigment that it hides the blue undertones, but not so much that it makes your skin look red. You might want to use a spot concealer instead of color correction for areas that are particularly dense or tough to cover.

Eye makeup is usually what makes the biggest difference for most people, and should take around half of the total time you put into makeup. Eyes tend to be a focal point, and by strongly emphasizing them, we can reduce the emphasis on features we want to pull attention away from.

Eye makeup is usually pretty dependent on what kind of eye shape you have. This page goes into more detail on this, but knowing which type you have can help you find tutorials that work for you.

Eyeshadow adds most of the emphasis we're looking for. If you have a prominent forehead/brow, you'll want to avoid darker eyeshadows on the upper lid, since they can define your forehead more than it already is. Instead, opt to use lighter colors in that area. If you want something simple, applying a small patch of a bolder color on the outer corners of your eye is quick and gets the job done.

Bringing out your lashes also makes a big difference. The most essential tool for this is dark eyeliner, which puts emphasis on your upper lash line and can optionally give you a nice defining wing. To emphasize our lashes, we can either use mascara or false lashes. If your eyelashes are longer, you can usually just use mascara and call it a day. But if you're finding it's not enough, or you just want a more dramatic look for cosplay, false lashes are great. The downside is they're kind of annoying and can fall off, so it might not be practical for daily wear.

Optionally, using a white eyeliner on your bottom lash line and on the inner corners of your eyes can really make them pop. Using a metallic white pencil is best for this kind of thing, a lot of cosplayers use this to make their eyes appear larger.

Women tend to have higher BMIs than men, so this is usually an area that can differ a lot. Women tend to have rounder, fuller cheeks. If you don't have a lot of facial fat, making your blush more prominent can help a ton. It can add dimension to your cheeks so they don't come across as sunken. If you have a larger jaw, that added dimension can also make your jaw appear smaller proportionally to your cheeks.

A lot of people like gravitating towards bolder lipsticks when starting out, but if it's not your most flattering feature, you should use toned-down colors. For most, bolder lip color will only work if you balance it with bold eye makeup. There's ways of doing a gradient type look to add dimensionality to your lips, but the way you do it is dependent on the makeup style.

Having well shaped eyebrows can really help frame your face better. If you have really thick eyebrows, it can attract attention towards your forehead and overshadow your eye makeup. It's pretty cheap to go to an eyebrow place to get them shaped regularly, and honestly it helps with male presentation too. You can find good places in your area on Yelp. A lot of guys get them done, so it's nothing to feel weird about. If you're too self conscious though, or you just don't like your base eyebrow shape, there's tutorials for covering them with gluestick or pros-aide so you can draw eyebrows on instead. Assist Cosplay also has products for concealing eyebrows.

There's a few heuristics you'll want to follow when selecting a hairstyle which frames your face well:

• If your forehead is prominent, you should go for a hairstyle with bangs
• If your hairline has a masculine M shape, you should also go for a hairstyle with bangs
• If your face is longer, your hairstyle should have sidelocks that can help break that vertical length up
• If your face is too round, sidelocks can help frame it better
• If your face is very square, having a hairstyle with volume can help make it seem more round. If your hair is very flat you can use product to solve that.

The easiest way to experiment is to start with wigs. You can get ones in different styles, and see which ones work best for your face. You probably shouldn't buy an expensive natural hair wig at first, getting a few cheaper cosplay wigs will be enough to give you an idea of which styles work and which don't. Just make sure they have enough volume, some cosplay wigs don't have that and aren't very flattering. The higher quality cosplay wigs people generally recommend are from Epic Cosplay, Arda Wigs, and Eva Hair. You might need to trim the bangs on them, this tutorial shows you a few different ways of cutting them.

For getting your real hair styled, try and splurge a little bit on a nice hair stylist if you can. They can help you figure out a style that frames your face well, Yelp is a good place to find solid ones. If they have a good star rating chances are they won't be judgemental, and you can look at photos of their past work to see if you like the styles they specialize in. After that you can go back to a more affordable hair stylist that can maintain it, but at first it helps to pay a little more for someone else's expertise. Definitely tell the stylist you're explicitly looking for a feminine haircut, mention the things bulleted above if they apply to you, and feel free to bring reference photos if there's a specific style you like.

Face is usually the thing that people worry about the most, and although there's a lot to learn, it can be a really big confidence boost once you figure out something that works for you. It can be uncomfortable starting out since you probably won't look great at first, but be kind to yourself. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes when starting out, don't let a perfectly curated set of photos on social media make you lose sight of that. The only thing that matters is that you're doing your best, and in time you'll figure it all out.