Competition Makeup – Bigger, Bolder, Better

I have spent years trying to tame my makeup into a monster that doesn’t look like it is taking over my face.  Enter competition.  Now I need to apply my make up like a drag queen. This goes against everything that I have strived to master.

In competition you need to apply your makeup as “stage makeup”. Never worked on stage? Well this means really cake it on; bigger, bolder, better!  Think about it; your audience is sitting very far away, even in the front row they cannot see if your eyeliner is on point or that your eyeshadow is complementary to your outfit.  Heck! Sometimes they can’t even see if you have eyebrows!
I had a difficult time getting my makeup on “thick” enough.  Every fiber of my being resisted against putting the fortieth swipe of color across my eyelid.  I felt like a baby giraffe after I got my eyelashes applied *blink blink*.  And let’s not even get started on the great lip color debate.

What will help make this process easier when it is go time?  Where do we start for everything these days?  Why, the internet of course!  Google and Youtube bikini competition makeup and stage makeup.  You can see pictures, get tips and tricks and start planning out the concepts of your look.  Start playing with concepts weeks in advance.  I went to the Ulta counter and got a sample of Urban Decay’s Naked 7.75 foundation. This is the color you will be after your spray tan.  Or the color that you want your face to be.  Practice applying your foundation and play with what color eyeshadow colors you think will look nice.  Try your suit on with a fresh face of war paint and see if it looks complimentary.  Practice often with fake eyelashes if you don’t have much experience.  Remember that not all eye balls are one size fits all when it comes to lashes, you may need to trim your eyelash strip. 


The more you practice and tweak your look in advance the more comfortable you will become with the stage makeup techniques.  That way when it is show time you will be that more comfortable with the process.  Either that or pay for professional makeup.

Are we there yet?

I am done.  Beyond done.  I do not want to prep anymore.  I want it to be GO time.  I want to compete and I want life to be “normal”.

When you are prepping your body for a competition you get to the point, several times, of just ready to be done.  You measure, weigh and track every crumb of food that crosses your lips.  Your standards of off zone food (i.e. that piece that touched the table or worse yet, the floor) are non-existent.  I mean you weighed that snack within a gram of its life!  You MUST consume it ALL!!!

You are in the gym every day.  Sometimes multiple times a day.  You are lifting weights and doing cardio in your dreams.  Each day loses its name.  Tuesday?  You mean leg day?  That damn stair mill taunts you from the corner of the room “you can never beat me”.  But you try super hard to stay positive.  You can watch Netflix on the stair mill after all.

With all the glitz and glamour that prep is (sarcasm inserted here) what helps a person to get through it?  Well, reminding yourself that this is a very small period of time in the relation to the grand scheme of life.  Sixteen weeks feels like 16 years when you are doing something hard but looking back you realize it’s only blink in time.  Finally receiving your suit.  Nothing keeps you from shoveling in a fistful of chips while mumbling “YOLO” quite like knowing you have a scrap of fabric you will be shoehorning yourself into in less than four months. Hearing encouragement from those who know what they are looking at.  It feels good to hear a compliment from anyone, sure, but sometimes well-meaning friends and family say things that are not from a competitor mindset.  Like you are looking really “skinny”.  But when you are in the gym with other competitors “man, you are looking lean today!” *toot toot*!  Now THAT is what you needed.

Finally, when your day comes all those days spent grumbling, sweating and sometimes crying pay off.  You will have your time to shine and know you put in the hard work and hopefully bring home some hardware.  Until then keep grinding on!

My Saving Grace

Food prep.  Most of you know about it.  It’s a huge convenience being able to go to the fridge and pull out a day’s lunch and not have to worry about macros being screwed up.  You already know the macros on this meal and it’s going to be way more filling than anything you can scrounge up through a drive-thru.

The downside of meal prep is you actually have to prep your meals.  For me the thought of planning and prepping food makes me feel overwhelmed and I want to take a nap.  I know that my future self with thank my past self but I *hate* cooking. 

I wasn't ready, emotionally, to be done!

Enter my saving grace.  My husband.  He has been a great sport as I have drug him through this weight lifting competition prep journey.  You see, he cooks almost all the meals in our house.  As prep has gotten tighter he has started to prep a whole week’s worth of lunches for me as he saw me struggling to find things to pack for lunch.  Every weekend he has been making me a full week of chicken breast for lunch.  They have all sorts of different seasonings on them.  He then weighs and packs them up for me.  Often, he will even put the sides together for me.  Typically, broccoli, green beans, or sweet potatoes. Without him I would starve to death or not stay on track with my macros.

His sacrifice of time has saved my tail more times than I count.  He helps me not stress about what I am going to be eating.  And since he has already created the meal I am more likely to eat it.   When it’s me cooking I seem to think I need to come up with something new at every meal. It’s weird how content I am to eat similar things day after day when they are already weighed and prepped for me vs. if I have to materialize something myself.

I realize not everyone has a partner or a partner that is willing to prep their meals for them.  Make it a priority one of the weekend days to meal prep for the rest of the week.  Don’t get fancy or worry about making several different dishes.  Make a staple protein and switch up your sides.  Your future self will thank you.