Makeup for Lindy Hopping

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Being a vintage gal is a pretty demanding kind of thing. Curling and styling your hair, the anything-but-natural makeup, hunting out rare vintage styles and sometimes wearing clothes that are 80 years old, not to mention the ordeals of garters, stockings, high heels, corsets, jewelery, hats – there’s a lot involved!

Now imagine, that on top of all that, you weren’t only going to style your hair, do your makeup, and wear uber-feminine vintage style clothing, but you were going to do all that whilst swing dancing… for four hours straight… sweating and spinning and twisting and getting tossed around, sometimes upside down, by your partners – it’s a whole different affair!

When it comes to makeup, it can be really hard to find anything that stays, but here are two products I use. I guess, even if you’re not a Lindy Hopper, then at least you know these products have passed the ultimate durability test!

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Firstly, my dance partner Juan would kill me if I got lipstick on his shirt, and I’m not a fan of re-applying lipstick every ten minutes (or lipstick on my teeth, for that matter), so I use Cover Girl Outlast All Day Lipcolor, in “Ever Red-dy” (#507). It seriously doesn’t come off – you need a special remover to get it off at the end of the night. I like this one because the color is a real fire-engine red, and it doesn’t flake off like some other so-called “everlast” brands. I’ve stopped trying to find it in stores (it’s usually the first color to go), so now I just buy it online on Amazon:

Cover Girl Outlast All Day Lipcolor on Amazon.com

I kiss my boyfriend, eat a meal, drink and dance all night long, and it stays on. I just pray they don’t discontinue it!!

Secondly, we have MAC Liquidlast Liner – yep, waterproof black liquid liner. Again, this stuff SERIOUSLY stays, you’ll need a special remover to get it off, although I find my moisturizer on a cottonbud works too. I think anything oil-based would get it off. But sweat doesn’t budge it, and you don’t have to worry about rubbing your eyes either. You can get it anywhere they sell MAC, I got mine at Sephora.

Beautiful Besame Cosmetics

I’ve played with Besame Cosmetics, and I can say it’s a lovely brand of makeup, with a spot-on accurate palette of vintage colors. But mainly, it’s the gorgeous vintage-recreation packaging that I love. If I ever stop travelling and find myself with my own dressing table, this is what would be on it. In the photo above is Gabriela Hernandez, the founder of the company.




More: BesameCosmetics.com