What up guys? Kristin here with "Be My Travel Muse," and today I'm coming at you from Myanmar
where I am getting a local makeover.
So, I think that there is a right way and a wrong way to learn about other cultures
and try to immerse yourself in them, wearing a Native American headdress to a festival:
wrong way. A right way, I think, is to ask someone of the local culture to teach you
about it. I've been curious what it would be like, actually, to ask a local person to
make me up in the standard beauty that is common here.
When you're there, you'll probably notice that the locals, both men and women, tend
to wear a sarong-like outfit that's called a longyi. And it's not only worn in formal
places like the office and temples, but also in daily life. So you'll see it on anyone
from hotel employees to taxi drivers.
So, a longyi is a circular fabric. And for men, it is tied in the front, and for women,
it is wrapped around and tucked. So, that, I think, is what they're going to probably
be putting me in today. Let's get on the road and see what I end up with.
First stop was The Amazing Look Makeup Studio in downtown Yangon.
All right, got a little lost, but step one, gonna do some makeup now.
I was, actually, Momo's [SP] first foreign guest ever, and she was a little bit nervous
to be on camera, but she was more than delighted to have me come by and to be able to do my
makeup for this video.
She invited her friend over as a translator, and then we got to work making me beautiful
in a Burmese style. Do you have many foreigners coming in doing their makeup?
Momo: No, you are the first one.
Kristin: I thought, maybe.
Translator: I remember when she was telling me about it, that she got a message from you. She was
like, "This must be a joke."
Kristin: First, she started with my eyes giving me more bodacious eyebrows than I have ever
had in my life. And then she moved onto my eyes, really emphasizing the curves and the
shapes, and making them look as big as possible.
Momo: It's hard to do. Please control.
Kristin: I think this is the first time in 20 years I'm having my makeup done professionally.
Momo: Really?
Kristin: Yeah. This is very special for me, too.
Momo: Awesome.
Kristin: This is something that I notice about western style as well with the big, flashy
eyelashes and super defined eyebrows that you see a lot of people wearing around England,
the U.S., and Australia.
Translator: Yeah, foreigners wearing the longyi dress, or even speaking a few words of Burmese.
You will see a big smile on their faces.
Kristin: Good. Good. Big reveal.
I've never had such voluptuous eyebrows. This is awesome.
Thank you.
Momo: Yeah, do you like it?
Kristin: I love it.
What I also learned is that the makeup, these days, tends to be a lot more natural than
it used to be 10, 15, and even 20 years in the past.
Elegant is what I'm feeling, very elegant, and I haven't worn makeup in, like, three
weeks, so this is... It's kind of cool to have it done. Now we're going to Retro Yangon
to do the dress up and photos. We're hustling a little bit because we're running late. I'm
always running late.
Ah, yes. Retro Yangon. That's where I'm going.
Hello.
Kristin: Hello. Sorry, I'm late.
Woman 1: That's okay.
Kristin: Should I leave my shoes here?
Woman 1: No, you can take off your shoes here.
Kristin: Okay. This is Garrett [SP]. He's filming.
Garrett: Hi.
Woman 1: Oh. Nice to meet you.
Garrett: Nice to meet you.
Kristin: The studio had a lot of props as well as vintage photos, which gave me a peek
into what women used to wear and one of the things I didn't expect is to see how big the
cigars were that women used to smoke. I mean, these cigars were sometimes even bigger than
the woman's head.
So this is, like, the hair, dress up part of the experience, and it's retro, so it's,
like, sort of, this really classic, old style. And I'm excited to do it. And then we shoot
pictures afterward.
I like the gold. I like the purple, too. There's green. What do you think matches my makeup?
Woman 1: What about this one?
Kristin: Yeah, I like that one.
Woman 1: You kind of have a little pinkish color on your eye.
Kristin: Yeah.
Woman 1: So, I think the pink one will be off.
Kristin: Let's do this one.
Woman 1: Yeah.
Kristin: I like that one.
Woman 1: Okay, so this one then.
Kristin: Perfect.
Then it was time to do my hair, which involved a lot of fake options.
Kristin: I think I'll do this one.
Woman 1: The square one.
Kristin: Yeah. I don't think anyone will believe that's me.
Garrett: You're too tall.
Kristin: I'm just a little tall.
Garrett: You're too tall.
Woman 1: I'm on tippy-toe.
There was a lot of hairspray involved.
I also thought it was interesting
that they made sure that the hair accessories aligned perfectly with my nose and thought
maybe symmetry is part of the beauty definition in Myanmar.
Next it was time to put the jacket on and glam it up with lots of jewelry. It seemed
like back in Retro Yangon clunky jewelry was having a moment.
My big hands are posing a problem.
And after spending hours getting ready, I present to you the final look.
It's photo shoot time.
Tech: One, two, three.
We worked with a local photographer who was incredibly dedicated. The girls also
taught me how to pose properly for the camera. I needed several dif ferent looks using different
items from the arsenal in the studio. and that, of course, included a giant cigar.
Tech: Nice. [inaudible 00:07:32]. One, two, three. Two, three. And look at the camera.
Yes. Smile. One, two, three. Nice. Sit up a little bit. One more, please.
My final frame, which required a more professional pose marked the end of a
fun-filled day.
Tech: One, two, three.
Kristin: All right. Well, that was quite an eventful day. Learning a little bit more about
Burmese beauty and also being able to dress up in retro Burmese style and do a little
photo shoot. I didn't even expect the second part to be quite like that.
So, it was pretty fun actually to do, and it's clearly just set up for tourists. And
you can find it at Retro Yangon on Facebook. And then the other one I also just did a Facebook
search to find. So, it was really nice that it all came together like that. So, first,
let's talk about the makeup. I was the first foreign client she ever had. In fact, she
thought it was a joke when I reached out and wanted to book for her.
So that was cool. Though, she was excited about it, though. She already posted the photo
on Facebook. I thought that was really cool. It was really fun for me to tell her just
to do whatever she wanted to do, so she said that these days people are more interested
in a natural look.
She gave me super bodacious eyebrows. I've never had eyebrows this amazing before. She
also made my eyes look a lot bigger by putting mascara on my, actually, excessively long
bottom lashes, and also lining in such a way that I felt like really opened up my eyes
and made them look even larger than they are.
She also put some glow here, and I think elongated my nose with that. I don't know, I feel like
in Asia sometimes they want to accentuate the nose, but it's not my favorite feature.
So it's not something I would normally do. But I like overall what she did. And I think
it looks really nice, and it did look really natural and not over the top at all. And,
so, that was really fun for the photo shoot because I think that it probably matched what
people might have worn back in the day as well.
I loved all the jewelry that I got to wear. I loved that they had all of these different
longyi that I could pick from. It was interesting to do the photo shoot. The photographer was
super dedicated. They were all really into it. And it's a lot more fun when everyone
is super into it and you don't feel like this weirdo who wants to come play dress up.
They were all very professional. They've only been open for nine months, so it was really
cool to be able to do this. I threw it all together very last minute. And I'm very glad
that everyone was excited and on board, and everyone thought that it was a show of appreciation,
which it is, and that they were all so happy to accommodate.
This is my first video of this series, but I want to keep doing it. So, if you like it,
give it a thumbs up. Let me know in the comments what you think, and other makeovers that you
think would be really cool. See you guys next Wednesday. Bye.