Before she was a manga-ka, Ikumi Rotta worked at a make-up counter and she still loves playing around with make-up and answering questions from her fans about how to use it.
So, channeling her inner ideal self Narumi Rokka, she’s here to answer your questions about the foundations of make-up, oh and questions about eyeshadow, lips, and skin care too!
I was not one of the girls who was into make-up in high school. I was caught in an odd, cyclical situation where by not wearing make-up people thought I wasn’t interested in it and, since people thought I wasn’t interested, no one showed me how to wear anything more than concealer so I continued to not wear anything! That means that I come at make-up from the odd angle of learning how to do cosplay make-up (which is flashier than everyday make-up, both to match how extreme costumes and wigs are and because you need heavier make-up for photographs) and then “adjusting it down” for daily wear; even after doing this for about a decade I consider myself “competent” with make-up but still lacking a lot of knowledge. So, with that limited viewpoint in mind I must ask…
…where on Earth was this book when I was in high school and can I please send a copy back in time to my 2010 self?
To be clear, make-up is an art, not a science, and there are certainly a few places where I quibble with Rotta’s ideas. There’s a section near the end of the book talking about how to use “concealer” and I wonder if that’s a different product in Japan than the US; in the US I would consider a concealer to be “make-up you can quickly apply to cover up acne etc, can be used either as a touch-up by itself or as part of a full face” but here she talks about it as if it’s an extra step in the process to add more oomph to your look (when believe me, as someone with acne, skipping the concealer is never an option).
But other than that bit of strangeness, and she does otherwise talk about concealer in the way I’m used to thinking of it (talking about different forms of application it comes in, how to use different colors to cover up different blemishes etc), I found this to be a really useful, informative guide. In fact, I am planning on buying my own, physical copy of it in the future that I can take into the bathroom with me so I can reference a few of her tricks when trying out the Sailor Moon eyeshadow collaboration from Colourpop that I recently snagged.
As I mentioned earlier, since I’m not an expert in makeup there’s not much about Rotta’s techniques or suggestions that I can critique, except to echo what Rotta says that if you’re still having issues with acne etc after establishing a “good” routine for your skin you should absolutely talk to your doctor about it; makeup isn’t “magic” and sometimes, like me, your skin needs a bit of extra help to not look like a mess even with makeup!
Since I didn’t have a copy of this book in high school, the next best thing is that I hope many libraries get a copy of this for their teen non-fiction sections; the art has even been flipped as, I assume, a move to make the book more approachable for even non-manga readers and even flipped the art and paneling still flow cleanly and intuitively. Rotta has created another, one volume guide to make-up, one that goes into more advanced techniques, and I certainly hope Seven Seas picks that up for 2021!