Fashion

Steal Kaylee Frye's Party-Ready Makeup

by Rosie Narasaki

While waiting for the new season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, I've put myself on a massive Whedon re-watch. I made it all the way to season 7 of Buffy before petering out and switching over to Firefly. In case you're unfamiliar with the show, it's a fantastic, albeit short-lived (it was tragically cancelled after just one season), sci fi series that follows around a group of rebels around the universe after a civil as they get into all sorts of serious trouble with the government and other nefarious characters. It's all streaming on Netflix, so seriously: Go watch it now.

I was extra excited when I got to the "Shindig" episode, because you know what that means: pretty dresses galore! And the infamous Captain Tightpants! But I noticed something this third (or is it fourth?) time around on the episode — Kaylee's makeup.

It's sweet as you'd expect — after all, it has to match her pink layer cake dress (which is almost frighteningly similar to Lena Dunham's Emmy dress from Monday, by the way). That said, it has a touch of a futuristic, editorial edge: it's actually got a little of the recent Gucci runway beauty look about it. Plus, it's the perfect look to give Mal the side-eye in:

Anyway, as soon as I saw the double-winged eyeliner, I knew I had to give it a try. So here it is!

Let's get started

Eyeshadow

I just did a tiny bit of contouring, since Kaylee's eyelid crease is much more defined than mine. Still, though, I kept it more on the natural/neutral side, because you don't want to steal the show from the eyeliner.

Eyeliner/Mascara

Start with a standard cat eye, using the liner of your choice. I like to use gel liner (Bobbi Brown Long-Wearing Gel Eyeliner), but a lot of my friends prefer to make their cat eyes using liquid liner — I suppose it comes down to personal preference.

Now, here's the tough part: I'm kind of a makeup newbie, so that undereye flick was hard as all hell for me to draw. I tried everything: liquid liner (not happening with my ultra-watery summer-allergy eyes), pencil liner (too thick and smudgy), and finally the good old Bobbi Brown gel liner that I used on my top lid.

I'm not gonna lie, it was an arduous process that involved a lot of eye makeup remover, Q-tips, and even an eyeliner pencil that went rogue and fell into the toilet (RIP). But once I settled on the gel liner, things looked up a little, and I also found that drawing a faint line with eyeshadow beforehand helped keep things symmetrical. My one caveat was that I wasn't able to get the line quite as delicate as I wanted — which is where a liquid liner would come in, if you don't happen to be an allergic mess.

As for mascara? Pack. It. On. Upon close inspection, it looks like Kaylee's ultra-fluttery lashes might be getting some help from some falsies, so you can always go that route if you want. I was too scared (last time I used false eyelashes, I didn't remove enough glue before trying to take them off my face, and the results were quite painful), but if you're wearing this look for a party, they might be a nice touch.

Cheeks

For the party, Kaylee traded out her signature dirt smudges for pink (of course, pink) blush! I used TheBalm in Cabana Boy, which is a bright plum/darker pink shade.

Lips

More pink! And make sure it's a glossy one: I found that MAC Lipstick in Lustering was well up to the job.

And here's the finished look:

It's a lot of fun — it can be amped up for something high-impact; especially if you swap out the pink, pink blush and pink, pink, pink lippy for something darker, like Inara here:

But it's pretty versatile! The double wing is a lot of fun, and the rest of the look is soft enough to make it wearable for day.

Images: Firefly/Fox (2); Rosie Narasaki (5)