( photo alt text: Balenci-Yaga )

Ladies, help!

I've really been struggling with confidence around my makeup skills, and I strongly attribute this to a lack of educational tools that cover the true fundamentals of makeup application for human faces.

There are SO SO MANY books and tutorials out there that demonstrate how to execute a particular look or use a particular product, but I have yet to find any resource that fundamentally covers WHY you are supposed to do this particular thing in a specific way. And even if I find something close, it presumes an already feminine face shape (and almost always model-thin).

For example, it took me entirely too long to figure out fundamentals of light and shadow; playing with color to trick the eyes into thinking your face has a different shape. I'm looking for resources that start that basic, and goes on to explain what each product seeks to achieve conceptually along with some examples of what looks good on a variety of face types. Specifica

five different colors of eyeshadow here, a lot more are visible in person than in this eyeshadow