Facial Hair Tecniques

 From my research into the variations between males and females I know that males grow facial hair and women don't so this is an important step in gender transformation. There are many techniques for adding facial hair that do not involve knotting. As I'm doing gender transformations I would like to try some of these. The time constraints of the project mean I don't have the time to knot a full beard which if this was a full makeup on a film etc. I would consider having done as a realistic way to add a beard. However I would like to try techniques to add facial hair. Laying hair directly onto the face has advantages in that it's difficult to tell it's fake as there are no edges to conceal and it's much quicker and can be changed easily.

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This picture shows the method for laying on hair:

1) Apply spirit gum under the chin in the desired shape for the beard
2) Take the hair from the hackle - hair needs to be mixed in colour or it will look flat and unrealistic.
3) Spread the hair onto the required area and tap the ends of the hair so they adhere to the gum. Cut the hair to the desired length.
4) Start with the darker colour underneath and get lighter as move towards mouth
5) When a large area has been covered, use a towel to press the hair firmly to secure the hair and get rid of any extra gum
6) Thin the hair out at the top and the side of the jaw
7) When finished use a large-toothed comb to comb gently through the hair
8) Cut the hair into the required shape.

This is an example of laying on hair which is a technique I could use for gender transformation if I wanted a full beard and didn't have the time to not it. It works well as lace can't be seen but is time consuming to actually apply which could be an issue.

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These pictures show the method for applying stubble. You can make stubble with just makeup (ie. greasepaint) which works from afar but doesn't look so realistic close up.

1) Spread the wax thinly over the face
2) Place a small piece of hair lace on the wax and press it on
3) Start at the side of the face. Dip a soft powder brush into finely chopped human hair. Stipple the brush onto the hair lace.
4) Pull the lace off carefully, leaving the hairs attached to the wax and making them stick on end.
5) Move round the face section by section. Take down the neck to the Adam's apple.

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 Experimentation

On my chin I experimented with using brown and black greasepaint on a stipple sponge for a stubble effect. I liked the technique and from afar it looks effective. It was also extremely quick and easy. Close up it's more obvious it's makeup.

On the middle section I tried the applying stubble technique with spirit gum. This worked well but remained very sticky for a while and made the lace difficult to work with.

On the far section I experimented with the stubble technique using pros-aide. I much preferred this to spirit gum as it dried matte not shiny, didn't remain sticky and more hair stuck onto the section.

 All three techniques were useful but my favourite was using pros-aide as I think it looks the most realistic and was the easiest to work with. For a much quicker, simple application I would use the greasepaint technique but for a more in depth girl to boy transformation I will use the pros-aide version of applying stubble. All together I was happy with my experimentation as it helped me decide on stubble techniques for my different gender transformations.

If a gender transformation makeup was to be done as a full makeup it is possible that knotting hair would be used to make a piece like a beard or mustache. In this case I would use human hair and a single hair knotting technique to create the piece. I did a small example of this in a square of knotting to experiment with how natural lace can look on the face and get an idea of the techniques that would be used in a full makeup.

I was happy with how the knotting went on this small section, I used a single knotting technique and synthetic hair I had left over (for a full beard it would be better to use human hair) The piece stuck well at the bottom but became slightly unstcuck at the top which is why the lace can be see. To change this I would cut the lace closer to the hair and use mastix as a glue. However this was very helpful in seeing how natural a lace beard could look on a gender transformation makeup and if I was to do a full girl to boy makeup I would definitely consider knotting a full beard as I think it could be very effective and natural looking.