Maiko Newhalf
10-15-2011, 03:20 PM
My Dearest CDs.com Gals,
As some of you know, I have already started two posts regarding my recent trip to Atlanta. I spent quite some time (and money) planning on the trip. Although my first time going out en femme was not that succesful to say the least (I wrote down my experience in another post: http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?161482-First-time-out-I-did-it-but-need-some-comfort...&highlight=), I'm just glad that I finally made the first move. Little did I know that a un-planned encounter with Phoebe Cross, Atlanta's crossdressing make-over guru, will pull me out of the misery, rebuild my confidence, and also teach me so many things that I didn't know before.
So it's all start with I have to come back home earlier. I changed my flight and cancelled the hotel which I planned to stay for a couple of days after my conference. I still had to stay in Atlanta for one more night to catch the returning flight the next day. And I remembered that Phoebe provide make over and Bed & Breakfeast service so I gave her a call. The main reason I decided to try her serivice is what she mentioned in her wesite that she's worked with crossdressers and drag queens a lot before. I'm sure that you can find better make-up artists but I always think that working with crossdressers are different than working with genetic girls. Anyways, she sounded very nice and professional over the phone so I decided to stop by.
Phoebe's house is in McDonough, which is almost a hour drive from downtown Atlanta. I arrived a bit ealier and decided to wait for a while sine she had another appointment before mine. Phoebe's probably in her sixties now and a typical sweet lady from the south. She welcomed me into her studio/guest house. We talked a while about my trip to Atlanta and where I'm in my crossdressing "career". I explained that I'm very transgendered and told her my experience a couple days ago. I would say we clicked right away. She showed me around the guest house and then the make over session began.
Since I'm very new and have no idea what my female look should be, Phoebe helped me pick pink as the theme color. And that I have to say was a wonderful pick. She perhaps learned my personality during our conversation in the beginning. I also see myself as a sweet and cute girl when en femme and pink is the right color for me. I told her that I want to learn as much about make-up as possible. So she patiently explained each step while doing them and answered every one of my questions. I learned some cool tricks that havn't been mentioned elsewhere like re-coloring the face after powder and how to use very tiny little bit of a soft brown color to countor the face (I bought it as brow powder). She also used the makeup I brought so that could have the chance to reproduce what she did on me. I'm pleased with what she did since it's a natural look. She likes natrual look more than drag queen type look herself too.
Oh did I mention her HUGE collection of wigs and dresses? She taught me how to choose wigs and how to properly put then on. And suggested that I should use a wig cap since I'm growing out my own hair too. What I appreciated the most is that her passion in what she'd doing. She spent a lot of time trying to look for a China Doll wig because she think it's the right fit. We didn't find it but still found some others that suit me well. She had me tried on a blonde wig, which I would never do myself. It actually looks pretty good.
Her passion and experience are defintely the most helpful things for a newbie like myself. We discussed about whether I want myself to be a Chinese girl or American girl and designed all my looks based on my choice of being a Chinese girl. I have always been self concious about my masculine body features like broad shoulders and narrow hips. She disagreed and said that I only have narrow hips but not so broad shoulders. What she demonstrated for me is not trying to hide the cons but emphasize the pros. For example more leggy look (short skirts / leggings etc.) will draw people's attention away from one's upper body (Lulu taught me this too -- thank you lulu). Some A-line skirts also help creating the illusion of a wider hip. We also chatted a lot about the transgender life. She gave me a lot of encouragements and that helped my shattered confidence. We talked about SCC and that I hope to attend next years meeting. She took tons of picture for me and left the guest house around 2am that night -- I'm so grateful for all of these, esepcially considering she already had another appointment before mine.
It is amazing that how I felt that night. Since I looked a lot more girly with Phoebe's help, my whole mannerism and mind seem to have changed. Or maybe I just freed my feminine self that night. Everything felt so natural about being a girl. It's not better or worse -- it's just natural. And it's not about the dressing at all. I mean I know there's issues of being a girl and definitely not seeing transition as a way out or anything euphoric. It will be tough but it feels so good to be myself, free from repression and to fully accept my feminity -- I guess I'm starting to get lost in the PINK fog.
Another really important aspect that Phoebe helped me with is about my female name. I came up with Rose when I first restarted dressing several month ago because it's close to my boy mode English name. But I've never been really satisfied with the name -- I simply don't see myself as Rose that much. Phoebe's question about Chinese or American girl inspired me to think of a more ethnic name. She also had me try on a Komono dress which I loved sooooo much (the one in my current avatar and profile pictures). So one my flight back to Tucson I decided to get a Japanese name. :) I always love the name Maiko (pronouced as ma-yi-ko), which means girl in linen clothes or apprentice geisha in Japanese. The name is just so feminine and it is also the name of a Japanese girl who I had a crush on several years ago. I also picked Newhalf as the last name because it is a polite way to refer to transgirls in Japanese (at least that I gathered from my superfacial understanding in Japanese language and culture). So I finally got a feminine name that I'm happy with. Yeah!!
Thanks you for reading this looooong post, my girls. I just so want to share my amazing experience with you. I've seen some girls including AKADonna who had given me a lot of good suggestion asked on this forum about the professional make-over service in Atlanta. I highly recommend Phoebe's service from my own experience and I hope this post would help. I'll also upload some pictures hopefully soon in The Picture and Gallery forum.
Pcitures Added: http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?161872-First-post-here-Picture-from-Atlanta-Trip&p=2626632#post2626632
Cheers,
Maiko
As some of you know, I have already started two posts regarding my recent trip to Atlanta. I spent quite some time (and money) planning on the trip. Although my first time going out en femme was not that succesful to say the least (I wrote down my experience in another post: http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?161482-First-time-out-I-did-it-but-need-some-comfort...&highlight=), I'm just glad that I finally made the first move. Little did I know that a un-planned encounter with Phoebe Cross, Atlanta's crossdressing make-over guru, will pull me out of the misery, rebuild my confidence, and also teach me so many things that I didn't know before.
So it's all start with I have to come back home earlier. I changed my flight and cancelled the hotel which I planned to stay for a couple of days after my conference. I still had to stay in Atlanta for one more night to catch the returning flight the next day. And I remembered that Phoebe provide make over and Bed & Breakfeast service so I gave her a call. The main reason I decided to try her serivice is what she mentioned in her wesite that she's worked with crossdressers and drag queens a lot before. I'm sure that you can find better make-up artists but I always think that working with crossdressers are different than working with genetic girls. Anyways, she sounded very nice and professional over the phone so I decided to stop by.
Phoebe's house is in McDonough, which is almost a hour drive from downtown Atlanta. I arrived a bit ealier and decided to wait for a while sine she had another appointment before mine. Phoebe's probably in her sixties now and a typical sweet lady from the south. She welcomed me into her studio/guest house. We talked a while about my trip to Atlanta and where I'm in my crossdressing "career". I explained that I'm very transgendered and told her my experience a couple days ago. I would say we clicked right away. She showed me around the guest house and then the make over session began.
Since I'm very new and have no idea what my female look should be, Phoebe helped me pick pink as the theme color. And that I have to say was a wonderful pick. She perhaps learned my personality during our conversation in the beginning. I also see myself as a sweet and cute girl when en femme and pink is the right color for me. I told her that I want to learn as much about make-up as possible. So she patiently explained each step while doing them and answered every one of my questions. I learned some cool tricks that havn't been mentioned elsewhere like re-coloring the face after powder and how to use very tiny little bit of a soft brown color to countor the face (I bought it as brow powder). She also used the makeup I brought so that could have the chance to reproduce what she did on me. I'm pleased with what she did since it's a natural look. She likes natrual look more than drag queen type look herself too.
Oh did I mention her HUGE collection of wigs and dresses? She taught me how to choose wigs and how to properly put then on. And suggested that I should use a wig cap since I'm growing out my own hair too. What I appreciated the most is that her passion in what she'd doing. She spent a lot of time trying to look for a China Doll wig because she think it's the right fit. We didn't find it but still found some others that suit me well. She had me tried on a blonde wig, which I would never do myself. It actually looks pretty good.
Her passion and experience are defintely the most helpful things for a newbie like myself. We discussed about whether I want myself to be a Chinese girl or American girl and designed all my looks based on my choice of being a Chinese girl. I have always been self concious about my masculine body features like broad shoulders and narrow hips. She disagreed and said that I only have narrow hips but not so broad shoulders. What she demonstrated for me is not trying to hide the cons but emphasize the pros. For example more leggy look (short skirts / leggings etc.) will draw people's attention away from one's upper body (Lulu taught me this too -- thank you lulu). Some A-line skirts also help creating the illusion of a wider hip. We also chatted a lot about the transgender life. She gave me a lot of encouragements and that helped my shattered confidence. We talked about SCC and that I hope to attend next years meeting. She took tons of picture for me and left the guest house around 2am that night -- I'm so grateful for all of these, esepcially considering she already had another appointment before mine.
It is amazing that how I felt that night. Since I looked a lot more girly with Phoebe's help, my whole mannerism and mind seem to have changed. Or maybe I just freed my feminine self that night. Everything felt so natural about being a girl. It's not better or worse -- it's just natural. And it's not about the dressing at all. I mean I know there's issues of being a girl and definitely not seeing transition as a way out or anything euphoric. It will be tough but it feels so good to be myself, free from repression and to fully accept my feminity -- I guess I'm starting to get lost in the PINK fog.
Another really important aspect that Phoebe helped me with is about my female name. I came up with Rose when I first restarted dressing several month ago because it's close to my boy mode English name. But I've never been really satisfied with the name -- I simply don't see myself as Rose that much. Phoebe's question about Chinese or American girl inspired me to think of a more ethnic name. She also had me try on a Komono dress which I loved sooooo much (the one in my current avatar and profile pictures). So one my flight back to Tucson I decided to get a Japanese name. :) I always love the name Maiko (pronouced as ma-yi-ko), which means girl in linen clothes or apprentice geisha in Japanese. The name is just so feminine and it is also the name of a Japanese girl who I had a crush on several years ago. I also picked Newhalf as the last name because it is a polite way to refer to transgirls in Japanese (at least that I gathered from my superfacial understanding in Japanese language and culture). So I finally got a feminine name that I'm happy with. Yeah!!
Thanks you for reading this looooong post, my girls. I just so want to share my amazing experience with you. I've seen some girls including AKADonna who had given me a lot of good suggestion asked on this forum about the professional make-over service in Atlanta. I highly recommend Phoebe's service from my own experience and I hope this post would help. I'll also upload some pictures hopefully soon in The Picture and Gallery forum.
Pcitures Added: http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?161872-First-post-here-Picture-from-Atlanta-Trip&p=2626632#post2626632
Cheers,
Maiko