As Sophie gradually & progressively steps out of the shadows and into the daylight, she thought it time to give a bit of a shout-out to a few small businesses which have greatly assisted her, one way or another.
Paul: Make-Up Artist Extraordinaire
Paul’s company Born specialises in beauty, feminisation, confidence and self-esteem for trans women and cross dressers. The business is based in Prestwich, North Manchester.
Paul himself has impressive skills and I cannot recommend him highly enough. I took the liberty of feeding some of his creative work with myself through an AI to see what it thought:
Those detections average at 31½ years, with a range of 16 years. With a makeover by Paul, people have frequently refused to believe my real age 🤩.
After a lot of coaching by Paul, my own efforts are getting progressively less scary. I fed some of the better ones through the same AI:
Those detections average at 37¾ years, with a range of 9 years. However, whereas Paul creates a masterpiece of detail and subtlety in 30 minutes, it takes me an hour or more to create anything worthy of exposing to the outside world.
Paul has some clients who come for a makeover, have some photographs taken, and then remove it without anyone else seeing it. Whilst this feels like a terrible waste of such talent, it does mean that if you’ve ever wondered what you’d look like en femme you can find out discreetly and at a very reasonable price.
Charlie Mary Jays: Beauty Salon
Charlie Mary Jays can be found on Instagram, and apparently facebook (unlike myself!) and is located in Colwyn Bay, North Wales. An extremely friendly place with lovely staff, providing an enormous range of services. Completely unfazed by the prospect of working on me, I initially had eyebrow shaping & tinting plus eyelash tinting and lifting all done by Jenelle. Starting out subtle and getting a little more daring over time.
Then, once I was more confident, and somewhat curious about the art-of-the-possible, Charlie herself did me a set of lashes, matching the previous colour choice, and looking simply AMAZING.
So whilst not the nearest establishment, Charlie Mary Jays is the one that I will be sticking with! 🤩💃🏼
Ruth: The Dressmaker
Ruth has immense experience working as a dressmaker. Her small business Sewn to Order can be found in Llandudno, North Wales. She undertakes repairs, alterations, and, for Sophie, has created complete dresses, with more interesting & adventurous ideas in the pipeline.
There is a lot of skill required for this type of work, and finding someone with the experience, skill and talent is a joy indeed. Highly recommended!
These were all made by Ruth; same design, different colours and weights of material, all for partying 🥳💃🏼
“It’s all about me, me, me…”
…but this posting is specifically all about them, them, them.
Without the support and encouragement provided by friends, colleagues, family, and small businesses like these, Sophie would not have seen the light of day at all, and she is grateful to them all.
Sophie Baskerville 