Return to Applying Makeup video page.

NARRATOR: A blonde woman at a bathroom mirror demonstrating how to apply makeup.

ESTHER: This is not terribly easy for me because I do have advanced macular degeneration. I do not have any central vision whatever. I do have peripheral vision.

Putting on Eyeliner

NARRATOR: A woman holding a black pencil.

ESTHER: This is a soft eyeliner, and soft is much better for people who really are sight-impaired because you don’t have to press as hard, and if you press the wrong area or the wrong line, it’s very hard to wash off. Close your eye and do the very tip, the end of your eye, in a sort of an almond stroke, so by the time that you’re finished with it, your eyes are going to look almond shape instead of round.

Using Mascara

NARRATOR: She picks up a mascara brush.

ESTHER: My next step after that is mascara. So you want to touch very lightly on your eyelashes, blinking–at least I blink while I put this on my eyelashes because it seems like I have more control over that and it doesn’t go on quite so harshly. When we can’t see what we’re doing, our other senses take over. And you can feel, as you close your eyes and gently put the eye mascara on your eyelashes, you can feel it. And you can feel how much is going on by the amount of pressure that you apply to the eye.

Using an Eyebrow Pencil

ESTHER: I always blow on it to make the lid in closing the pencil warmer so that it applies more easily and I don’t have to put that much pressure on. As you apply it, you can feel not only the pressure that you’re putting on your eyebrow, but you can also feel the hairs. These makeup mirrors are wonderful. This mirror I’m using is a travel mirror. It has suction cups in the back of the mirror and it will hold if it’s suctioned on to the bathroom mirror you know, at home or in a hotel, or something such as that.

Makeup Disasters

ESTHER: There was a time that I thought I was doing so beautifully with my makeup. I went to the beauty shop, went into the rest room to put my eye makeup on before I went to a luncheon. I got to the luncheon, and they said, Esther, what’s wrong with your eyes? And I thought I looked fine. I couldn’t see what they thought was wrong with it. They, however, reminded me that I had pulled out the lip pencil rather than the eyebrow pencil, the eyelid pencil, and I had red all over my eyes, just like I was bleeding from the eyes.

Lipstick & Eyeshadow

ESTHER: Okay, next the lipstick. Again, this is by feel. Uh… and I can do this, I don’t need a mirror for this because it’s solely by feel.

NARRATOR: She applies a mauve lipstick to her lips.

ESTHER: And this is also not 100% all the time. The last thing is a little eye shadow. Out of my peripheral vision I make a line in the crease of my eye as well as the upper left side of the left eye and slightly, just above your eyelashes on the eye. As I leave the house, being picked up by somebody–because I don’t drive and you don’t want me out there in that street because I can’t tell the green light from the red light–I get into the car and ask for an eye check, whether I have too much here or not enough there, or whatever, and most of the time it comes out pretty well. As I say, don’t expect this to be done in the first few times that you try. Play with it–take time to play with it.