Introduction

You can call me Flux. I'm a female-to-male transsexual and 24 (gasp!) years old. Now, I know what you're thinking - "Why the f**k is a trans man giving me makeup and fashion advice?! This is gonna suck!" - but please throw away any preconcieved notions.

During my teen years, long before I transitioned medically (sob), I was a very feminine girl. I hated it, but I did it because I thought it would repress the scary trans thoughts and make me fit in with other girls. It didn't; I felt like shit, and frankly didn't look much better. But I was extremely fascinated by everything that went into beautification - the serums, the creams, the powders, the tools and rituals and products and tricks to make people look their absolute best. I read any and all beauty books I could find, and as a result have a lot of knowledge stashed away. That knowledge is useless to me now - I'm a straight man who considers hair oil to be the height of luxury - but it's going to be invaluable to you.

Being a woman is fucking rough, and society will not be afraid to glare upon you if you don't wake up every morning looking meltingly gorgeous. Add being a trans woman to the mix, and you've got a very confusing and scary maze to navigate. That's where this website comes in. This is (hopefully) a place where you can learn the ins and outs of beauty and fashion. This is not the Complete Illustrated Guide To Passing Flawlessly. It's simply designed to help you put together a style that reflects your own personality and helps you get read as female. It's also worth noting that many of the things said on here are interim measures - when I say to put down the black lipstick, it means that it will make you look clocky, not that you should throw it all away and never wear it again. I've tried to make this guide as wide-ranging as possible, and with the assumption that the reader is on or will soon be starting estrogen... after which you'll have a lot more freedom to look however you like!

A few things before we begin.

Life sucks. We know this. As I'm sure you have noticed, some people born male simply pass better than others with an infuriating ease. They're shorter, their shoulders are more narrow, they've got wider hips, their eyes are bigger, their lips are full, they have a tiny ski slope nose... you get the gist. The point is, they can pass without hormones easily.

Other trans women aren't so lucky - they're tall, gawky, with no hips and no boobs, and all in all need the help of estrogen badly. This may be you, or it may not be - the point is, that's not your fault. A very tiny percentage of people roll natural 20s on all their features, and we can't control what we inherit and what we don't. There is a lot in this guide that I won't cover simply because I'm not qualified to - I can't tell you your ideal estrogen dosage or where your fat will choose to redistribute in a month - and those things are better answered by another trans woman or medical professional than a stranger on the internet. All this guide can do is help you make the most of what you have.

It's also worth mentioning that this is not a guide on how to be a trap, femboy, or crossdresser. In fact, a reccuring theme in this guide is How Not To Look Like An Internet Femboy Or Crossdresser. And it's hard; a lot of trans women may be leaving those cultures behind as they blossom into their true selves. But if you have a masculine body, and you're dressing like a femboy... people will assume you're a femboy, not a woman, and they'll gender you as such.

Lastly...

In an ideal world, this guide would not exist. People would gender you immediately as a woman upon first sighting, you'd need a single pill of estrogen to transition completely, and you'd be loved for who you are rather than what you look like or represent. Sadly, we do not live in an ideal world.

Sure, androgyny can be sexy, but being a non-passing trans woman comes with many pitfalls and dangers that don't make someone's fetish worth it. Passing to society at large will improve your life and mental health tenfold; you will no longer have to cope with the stigma and fear of being GNC, you won't be worn down by constant misgendering, you won't awkwardly shuffle into the men's bathroom and be met with strange looks - people will look at you and see you.

And I know that the lead-up to that can be agonizing terror. I know that at the moment you may just want to sit in your bed all day and bury yourself in big baggy clothes because you think there's no way in hell you'll ever look like a woman. But you have to make the leap into the unknown, because you won't know unless you try. Dwelling on your head shape or shoulder width or height is as useful as any cis woman bemoaning the fact that she wasn't born as Margot Robbie. You will always be trans, and that is okay. Being trans is okay. It's not an illness or a curse or a death sentence. You can do what you wish, be who you wish, fall in love with who you wish, and live a beautiful life - I promise. You just need a little help to get there.

So let's help you along, shall we?