Customer Reviews

Asian Faces: The Essential Beauty and Makeup Guide for Asian Women

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm not usually one to buy books on makeup and beauty, etc. So, this is a first for me. The book truly embraces the beauty of Asian faces and is filled with gorgeous pictures. As someone who tends to stick with really simple and basic makeup applications, I've really been surprised at the results I've gotten from following the step-by-step and "down to earth" instructions.

Also, there are examples given for different kinds of faces and features (ie. eye makeup applications for those who have double lids and those who don't). It is a really empowering book for Asian women who have either tried to follow makeup instructions for Caucasian faces that usually don't work and/or had someone do your makeup who tried to make you look Caucasian instead of playing up your natural and beautiful Asian features.

After the superb reviews, I was really excited about this book but found it to be too basic and lacking in real information. For example, makeup basics section is mostly pictures of items (lipstick, lipliner, eyeliner) with a name of what it is underneath. There is a section on how to wash your face (1. splash warm water 2. lather in circular motion 3. rinse). The second part of the book is composed of picture of face on left and description of how it was done on the right but the description is written stepwise with breakdown like this--"1. use foundation 2. use highlighting foundation 3. use eye shadow at base 3. use eye liner 4. use mascara 5. use lipliner." There is nothing about how to apply to eye liner, how to apply to lipliner, the foundation, etc. I can't do the makeup in the pictures but I can definitely write this book. Save your money.

I am a 27 year old woman of (probable) Korean ethnicity (I was adopted and whoever my birth parents were are untraceable). I grew up in a white family in a small hick town in PA where Asians were unheard of (lol, for ex. at age 15 a record store owner truly thought I was Yoko Ono, excitedly pointed to a poster of the Beatles/John Lennon and called all of the employees over to look at "John Lennon's wife in our town"! Another time, a 19 year old student told me, "Its so cool that I met you because now I can say I met a real life Asian, because before you came along I thought Asians only lived in the TV!") My adoptive mom has never worn make up in her whole life - even for her wedding!! Obviously, I was clueless about makeup, clueless regarding my appearance in general growing up. The time period was right before Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, and other beautiful Asian actresses began to appear in common media and grace the beauty ads of women's magazines. I was very self conscious because I had no idea what I looked like, I know it sounds weird.. I used to search magazines and TV shows, to no avail.. Ppl told me I looked exactly like Yoko Ono/Connie Chung/and Lisa Ling of Channel One news (in High School). I didn't think I looked like any of them but I didn't know what I looked like either, so I was just confused.. I had no clue what to do about make up, so I pretty much ignored it, gaining names like pizza face because of horrible acne... Anyway, sorry about the ramble... I WISH I HAD A BOOK LIKE THIS GROWING UP. I am sure many other Asian women would have found this book as life changing as I would have. In my early 20's, when I finally started gaining confidence about my looks, I bought every make up book that there was.. all of the Kevin Aucoiyn books were my favorites, because of the creativity, variety, limitless possibility, and stunning beauty of the images... I was stunned by the transformations done by makeup alone, and this is when I first began to view makeup as an art form. I began to take pictures of myself experimenting with all different types of makeup looks. The only thing was, I could never understand why some of the looks would not work on me, and all of the ones that did I had to spend hours of confusion 'adapting' them to fit me, eyes especially. It was very frusterating to find looks that I loved, but couldn't figure out why they did not work, or looked completely different. I wondered if I was doing something wrong, or at more frusterating times, if something was just wrong w/ my face, if I was defective in some way, since the looks worked on my friends that I made up. There are only 3 other books that have direct info for Asian women (Asian Beauty by Margaret ?, a small book by Jaceyln that took 6 weeks to arrive from Amazon, and Iman's Beauty of Color book). The first one disappointed me as far as the makeup tips went, but I thought it was nice for teenagers in situations like mine was because of the emphasis on Asians being beautiful too and the role models/famous Asian women... The 2nd one was a big disappointment - it was so small and didn't have many looks at all. It labeled eyes into 4 categories, and the whole techniques revolved around trying to make a "double eyelid" look - and by the end I had no idea what type of categories my eyes fell into, because they are very small but I do have a lid. Iman's, even though it was for all women of color, was the best of those because of the wide variety of looks, and truly celebrated all shades of women of color... The only thing was, since the book focused on many races, it wasn't directly presented to Asians of course, since that was not the aim of the book. I would highly recommend that title as well. I was ABSOLUTELY BLOWN AWAY the moment I flipped through Asian Faces by Taylor Chang-Babaian. The photographs were stunning, and I had never in my life seen such a variety of Asian women. I'm definitely no longer a beginner by now, so typically the first section of makeup books (a breakdown of the various cosmetics and basics) never provides me w/ anything new. However, I found myself reading and re reading the sections on layering, eyeliner, contouring, and other basics that she shed new light upon.. it was finally like the light bulb in my head clicked on, and every Asian adaptation of looks made sense. (the eyeliner close to the lashes was something I always thought was essential, I had a photo shoot once where the make up artist said that was wrong but I felt in my heart I looked better w/ it.. Taylor confirmed I was right after all!) Total beginners will find the first part of the book easy to follow, and advanced makeup artists will find tons of inspiration (and probably learn quite a few new tricks as well!!) I LOVE how Taylor displays endless creativity in her looks... the gorgeous full size pictures make some of the looks seem complex, but on the other side of the page she breaks everything down into steps, w/ an intensive focus paired w/ a close up picture of the more complex techniques. It is the morst thorough examination of the looks and best system of explaining the steps in any make up book I've ever seen! I also love how she puts the focus on the variety and beauty and art of makeup merging w/ her models, as opposed to focusing on "how to make a double eyelid" or other tips that might as well be saying, "how to make your eyes look less Asian".. or other things that make you feel flawed to be Asian. Instead, she celebrates the diversity of the many Asian women of the world. The book has seemingly endless looks, format being similar to Making Faces or Face Forward in the looks section which is divided into : Day, Evening, Cities (such as looks of LA or NYC), Period Looks (I LOVED this section.. I never realized these looks that I admired so much but was unable to adapt in Kevyn's books were even possible for Asian women, until now!), Special Occasion, and Costume. FINALLY, I can try every look out of a book directly from the instructions, instead of spending frusterating hours attempting to adapt looks that usually never looked the same or don't work on me at all. This book exceeded anything I could ever imagine. I did a 1920's period look last night for the first time ever - w/ no makeup remover involved! The days of irritated red eyelids from rubbing off products over and over, the nights of being the latest one out for a night on the town because my special night out makeup took an hour longer than the other girls... Those times are over!! My only complaint is, I wish this book would have existed 12 years ago, and there better be more.. many many more from this groundbreaking author!

I have mono-lids, meaning no crease on my eyes. Most make-up advice in magazines have tips on eye make-up involving people with deeper set eyes and creases, all which don't apply to me. I bought this book hoping to learn techniques that work with my eyes, but the only one it offered was a basic sweep of one color of eye shadow just above the eyes - something I had already accomplished the first time I put on make-up.

At least it includes great advice on color choices for cheeks, eyes, face, etc. I went out and bought brown eye shadows in gold, dark brown, and taupe upon this book's recommendation and it has worked well in giving me a natural, but polished look.

Length:: 0:55 Mins

I like this book. The previous reviewer who said it was like an Asian version of Kevin's Making Faces book was spot on. This book thankfully covers different types of Asians. I wish that it had more on cool and warm tones and color theory though. Overall nice book I would love to see an updated version and maybe a little more on the history of Asian make up. That would be really nice.
Enjoy the video. Sorry it is out of focus.

I actually learned of this book from New York Times controversial "gift guide for people of color." I was excited to see a book dedicated to Asian women, and it even had a South Asian woman on the cover! Since I ordered it from Amazon, I never saw the inside, but I wish I did.

Being that it is published by the same company, Asian Faces is very similar to Iman's book "The Beauty of Color." That's not a bad thing--there are beautiful photographs, with helpful diagrams and text. The author really gets down to all the things Asian women need to know, like contouring a face to fake the appearance of high cheekbones, resizing lips and eyes, and even a section on lightening or darkening skin with makeup (and every Asian will know how important being "fair and lovely" is). The tips are great and the models have quite a variant in face shape. After the different looks, she has sections on decades and costume make-up (she even includes a nice version of the Japanese Ganguro look).

The problem I have is with this book's diversity of Asians. I am Indian, and although that is a part of Asia, the common usage of the term usually refers to Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people (which I believe this book leans towards). It is true, that there is an Indian woman on the cover, and another slightly darker one on the back cover which is why I purchased it. But other than a pair of Indian sisters, those are the only 2 medium brown models. There really aren't any "Pacific Islanders" or medium-dark skinned Southeast Asians (although since they are almost a mix of South Asians and East Asians, I suppose they could combine advice). In fact, the first sentence in the "eyes" section states: "The shape most Asian eyelids are flatter than other women's eyes." While this is true to much of east Asia, it does not really apply to South Asians.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great book for Asians (particularly those with an epicanthic fold). There is great advice for Asian skin tone, face shape, eyes, and lips with some beautiful looks. The steps are pretty easy to follow, and as long as you read the techniques of layering at the beginning you should be able to come close to the look you desire. I suggest looking through the book to see if your skin tone and face shape are in there before you decide to buy it. I am medium-light colored, so I could follow some of the advice, but if you are darker I don't think this would be terribly helpful (although you may want to get this and "The Beauty of Color" and combine advice). However, if your main concern is face shape, eyes, lip shape, or changing your skin tone, this is the book for you. I would recommend it for most Asian women.

I have always been stumped by my eyelids. How do I make them look bigger? Fashion magazines didn't give any hints that would actually work for my face. Other makeup books state something along the lines of "Asian women are so naturally beautiful with nice skin that they don't need much makeup." When they featured Asian models, they were always half Caucasian and didn't look very Asian at all.

Well, hmm...that didn't help much either. Enter "Asian Faces" by Taylor Chang-Babian. She uses full Asian models (not biracial) from E. Asian to S. Asian ancestry to showcase a variety of techniques. She incorporates tricks and tips for double lidded AND single lidded eyes. She shows how to create period looks for an Asian face. She dispenses a wealth of information on skincare, tools, and colors. I love this book and recommended it to all of my friends!

I love this guide - lots of great photographs, tips, help on selecting colors, applications, skincare. it covers everything. Plus it features my favorite comedienne, Margaret Cho, who looks amazing in the photographs!

My only gripe is there are no color descriptions for the foundations used on the various women in the book - just pics of the color, although there are color descriptions for other makeup (lip, eye, cheek) used, none for foundation shades. My issue is finding the right foundation shade for my tone & skin type. (Light/medium combination of olive, gold, yellow, a little beige, freckles, ruddy cheeks, and combo skin with an oil-rich t-zone) I share the same skin tone as one of the women profiled. Nice colors of the foundations used on her, but no names of the colors? Frustrating to decipher what shades were used. I guess I will be lugging this book to the makeup counter to show the salesperson the colors I want.

Other than that this is an excellent makeup guide for Asian women - I have not seen any makeup guide that addresses the issues that Asian women have such as too much or too little yellow or pink or whatever color in cosmetic products, texture, usage, skincare, etc. This guide is a must have!

I have always been into beauty and makeup and believe me I've made my number of mistakes. So I bought this book to assist me in affirming many of the things I do and to learn more about applying make up that will look good on me as an Asian. This is a great book for beginners. It hit on a lot of things like taking care of your skin, different products to use with different makeup type etc, but I already knew this and it was good that she showed you how to do the different looks too. Another plus is that she had a costume makeup in the back of the book which I thought was interesting.
I did have a couple of issues thou because I have what is called a single eye lid (like the majority of Asians out there) that folds over my eyes instead of inwards so I don't have a crease and the author did not address this issue I don't even know if she mentioned it also all of her models had double eyelids where their eye lids creased inward. It would have been nice to get an Asian who didn't have a double eye lid surgery... Also I always thought that if you have small eyes (like me)you use the lighter shade closer to your eyes and darker on the outside going towards the brow to make it look bigger, but she didn't do it this way. She mentioned a lot of the technology and strives of the makeup industry, but I guess there is still more to learn. So, I'm going to stick with what I know, but incorporate some of her tips. Overall ok so if you want to look over it I would recommend checking it out at the library first.

It's not a GREAT book if you know all of the makeup basics. There are a few things in here that are interesting, like the section that involves the layering of the eyeshadow... but not much. It covers pretty basic stuff. The looks in the book are okay too, but I'm sure they're looks that anybody could come with if they got bored and decided to play with makeup.