7.20.26 last update 8.10 for clarity

in the past few months i've been dabbling and indulging in gyaru and i thought i would make a sort of 'how to gyaru' page only this is more like a 'makeup products i am currently enjoying as a newbie to gyaru' type of take on that kind of page.

disclaimer beforehand: i am blind in an eye and have an extremely bad Rx in my good eye, so i forego things many gyarus swear by like false lashes and circle lenses to minimize risk of infection etc.. not saying these things are unsafe, people have been using these things for years and as long as you apply them safely, you should be fine, but i'm just not willing to risk it! as such, i also don't use products not intended for use on your eyes around my eyes. i know some people have been enjoying using blush as eyeshadow and liquid lips as bases for eyeshadow lately, but i don't do that.

disclaimer 2 beforehand: i am by no means a mua lol. i have years of experience doing stage makeup in theater and cosplay makeup but i don't do makeup for other people and i only know my own skin and face! my skin is normal-dry but quite sensitive. i have a neutral undertone but my lips are cool enough that most lipsticks pull orange-y on me unless i get a very cool-toned one. and i used to deal with acne as a kid but apart from a hormonal pimple or two, i don't really deal with it in my adult life very often. hopefully this gives you an idea of how stuff lays on my skin!

disclaimer 3: the styles i gravitate towards incl. oldschool looks and softer hime/agejo style make. i really enjoy looks in 90s-early 00s egg, early 00s ego system, and ranzuki circa 2008-2011ish. galrevo is a great resource for gyaru looks, utilize it.

not every step in a makeup routine is included here because i either forego it or i don't have a product that i love enough & want to shill for that specific step yet!

beforehand prep: sunscreen and moisturizer! i swear by the ordinary for skincare. i typically default to their hyaluronic acid but will use innisfree's cherry blossom juju skin cream if my skin is particularly in need of it. after letting sit for a few min, i will then apply innisfree's sunscreen, and let sit for a few more minutes before i apply makeup.

eyeshadow: my one-and-done shadows come from the elf fine and fleck line (esp champagne showers) and the colourpop color shock singles. shimmery and so so pretty. outside of that, i typically enjoy colourpop palettes and morphe palettes. lately i've been using the morphe 6 pan palettes a LOT, especially cyber chrome (for the namida bukuro highlight especially) and sky fi (love love these blues and teals).
i recommend having a neutral nude palette in your arsenal so you have something easy on-hand for doing namida bukuro and softening your droop if you find that works best for your features but the neutral palette i use isn't the best so i'll avoid giving specific recommendations here.

eyeliner: liquid liner is a must. currently i'm using a black liquid eyeliner from asian beauty brand PINKFLASH; i recommend asian beauty eyeliners as their tips are quite skinny. i draw on lower lashes, so the skinny tip is very helpful for my usecase. before that i was using a cheap liquid liner from wet n wild that worked just fine though. sometimes i find using a gel liner to color in my droop or enlarge my eye works better than eyeshadow and i've been using l'oreal's gel liner for years in normal makeup looks as it's easy to smudge and blur out so that's continued to serve me well with this specific use case, i then set the gel by patting on top of it with a dark brown or black eyeshadow. i've recently started using canmake's creamy touch liner for my inner corners only and it is really easy to control (i struggle a lot with the inner corner since mine is relatively close to the side of my nose)

inner eye-white highlights: this is why i wanted to write this tbh because i'm so pleased with the combo i've been using here. i use the NYX jumbo eye pencil stick in milk (not cottage cheese). i pick up the product by dragging a small angled eyebrow brush across the surface and apply it to my inner corner instead of just going in and drawing directly on my face with the pencil. then i use the sparkly-silver glitter shadow from the morphe cyber chrome powder to set it, using the same brush with the white nyx pencil on it to pick up extra glitter. make sure to tap the glitter to your face instead of using strokes, it disperses much better that way.

mascara: in high school i wore a lot of mascara-only makeup and i kinda bounced around brands but ultimately what i've found is like every mascara performs pretty much the same on me. i've used too faced better than sex, nyx, the iconic green and pink maybelline one, some revlon one, a clinique one, i think urban decay or kat von d at some point, heroine make... ultimately the only thing i really notice is some of them are much harder to remove than others lol. i have settled on using essence's princess falsies lash mascara, the teal one, because it is $5 and due to my concerns about eye health, i don't feel bad throwing it away and replacing it if i feel it's getting kind of yucky. i don't use the waterproof one personally.

general highlighter: i'm not the tannest person on the block so i don't do kuro-style makeup. however i like using a little bit of highlighter in the center bridge of my nose, kind of where my nose starts! i use the colourpop vampire skin highlighter from their twilight collab. it's sheer and a pretty cold white but extra reflective so it's only noticeable under lights, which i think works perfectly if you want to do some harsh-leaning highlight but are worried about it looking silly if you aren't tan. i pick it up with my finger (a little goes a very very long way here) and dab it gently where i want it. i also use this as a brow-bone highlight and put a very small amount on my chin and forehead.

blush: my go-to baby pink blush is from flower knows' strawberry rococo collection, which i bought a few years ago because i thought the packaging was cute lol. i think the color i have is berry mary...? i also have a fwee pudding pot but the shade i have is too dark for gyaru; fwee stuff is a bit too expensive to justify buying more than one color for me and my budget & how often i wear makeup, but if you bought one in a baby pink or a coral, this stuff blends like a dream and you can use it on your lips too.

lips: rom&nd glasting gloss in cream shell is my ride or die for a glossy but still nude lip rn. it is not the most long-wearing gloss but i have literally never gone all the way through a lippie product that isn't chapstick before so i don't mind especially since it's not that expensive. i'm also enjoying revlon skyline pink and rimmel's pink frost right now for frosted pink lipsticks. these are both traditional bullet lipsticks you can find pretty much anywhere in the USA. i'd say skyline pink is more authentically 00s feeling in vibe as it's a very pale-almost-concealer-lip-pink, so i lean towards it more often, but it can definitely kind of erase your mouth lol. for a hyper-baby pink that i love to use in my hime-leaning looks, juvia's place gloss in pink velvet is amazing. juvia's place in general is a brand i recommend to everyone, it's a bit more expensive but their stuff works on every skintone and is super super pigmented.