[Cakes]

What I'd say is this: firstly, whatever you're told, please for the love of all things lovely don't do the 'corpsepaint' look. Bands like Malice Mizer and X Japan (correct me if I'm wrong) were the sort of bands that made the look prevalent during the 80s and 90s, but it's dropped somewhat out of fashion. It just doesn't look good. Hardly anyone suits in black or white, or for that matter those neons oshare kei bands wear; you need very strong clear colouring to do it well, and most Caucasians don't have this.

To tell if you do, take a look in the mirror: the three indicators of colouring are natural hair colour, skin colour and eye colour. If one of your colours is radically different from the rest (i.e., you have ash-blond hair, cool coloured skin and dark brown eyes) then you're a clear. If you have, say, ash blond hair, cool skin and blue or green eyes, most likely you're a soft. In that case, determine whether your colouring is cool or warm.

Warm hair will be black, or red-based browns to yellow-based blonds; warm eyes will be black, brown, hazel or golden, and warm skin will have a neutral or a yellowish tone. (Some people will say that yellowish skin is cool and pinkish warm. They've got it wrong-- it's the other way round, please trust me on this.)

Cool hair will be ash brown to cold-coloured light blond (but not yellow platinum, which is a colour that does not occur in nature. It's not about what colour it's dyed, I emphasise, it's about what you were born with.) Cold eyes will be blue, grey or green. Cold skin will be neutral to pinkish in tone.

The reason I'm going through this whole tl;dr explanation is because it's very important to deciding what makeup will suit you. Probably the reason that it doesn't suit you is because you're just not choosing the right colours for yourself.

If you're a clear with strong colouring, feel free to get the brightest neons and blackest eyeliner you can find. Just avoid the soft cold colours like the ones Hizaki often uses-- his ash-blond hair, for instance. Asians are clears who can wear pretty much anything. It'll work on him. Probably not on you, though, if you're a Caucasian clear, since they never have quite such strong colouring.

If you're a soft, try for more greys, golds if you're a warm and silver-blues if you're a cool. Softs can get away with strong colours too, but be careful about it. If you're a soft warm, for the love of all things don't try for bright cold blue eyeshadow, and if you're a soft cool stick away from the bright red lipsticks like you'll catch something off them. Make your eyeliner more of a charcoal grey (though again this is a bit of a rule that can sometimes be flouted. Blue-grey eyes can look rather cool and monochramatic if teamed with some black black eyeliner, I say it from experience.)

If you're after the gosuaristo pale look, get a foundation that's a shade or so lighter than your skin. Don't make it too pale; it'll look grey. Most makeup brands will produce similar tones in both pinkish and yellowish shades, so pick the shade that suits your skin, not the wrong one just because it looks paler.

After this, it's vitally important that you add powder. So many people make this mistake, it makes me facepalm. Visual kei is very much about flawless-looking features, face-wise, and if not fixed with powder liquid foundation especially will just sink away into the pores after a couple of hours. Get a powder that suits your skin tone, again. If you feel so inclined, get one a tiny shade (not, not, not too much!) lighter than your foundation-- the mixture of the two colours will make it less blaring that you're wearing too-pale makeup, so long as you blend it into your hairline and the sides of your face well.

Don't be afraid to use lots of it. You want your apparently-perfect skin to last all day, after all. Don't pick the rubbishy brands either (though don't pick the best on the other hand, because trust me when I say that you'll be getting through your makeup quite fast). Rimmel and Maybelline are both good brands to use, and not too expensive.

Make sure foundation is evenly applied, even when thick. Do it with your fingers if you're confident, or use a sponge to make sure. Don't pat powder on, because you could well end up looking like you dipped your face in bicarb of soda: not the look you want to give! Use a powderpuff or a soft brush and smooth it on instead, making sure if you use cream or liquid foundation that it's totally dried before you do so, or you might smudge it.
For an even look, use foundation directly under your eyes and on your eyelid and under the eyebrow too. Be careful with this. Don't get it in your eyes, and if it starts to sting take it off immediately. It's a very sensitive area of the face.

Eyeliner can be thick as you like on the top lid, often to give the slight illusion of an epicanthic fold (you won't do it perfectly, as said above, but who cares?). On the bottom eyelid, it goes underneath your lashes only to the point of the middle of your pupil. No further, however many old old photos you see of early visual kei artists doing the full eyeliner look. These days, it doesn't work like that.
The waterline is not often filled in in this style. It's your choice; I do it personally to create the illusion of a darker, smokier sort of eye since I'm also a follower of the aristo style, and it suits my style. It might not suit you, and often eyeliner on the waterline can irritate your eyes. If it does so, take it off and just wear it around the eyes.

A tip for bleeding eyeliner: using powder directly under the eyes before applying eyeliner can soak up the oil through the day and prevent you ending up with panda eyes. It's a great little cheat if you don't want to be spending $30 or so on good makeup-fixing stuff.

For the brighter colours, apply your eyeshadow first. Start with a light colour all across the eyelid. Move on to a medium shade of the same colour and use it on the inside and outside of your eyelid. Get the darkest shade of this colour and use it in the corners. It'll make the colour 'pop' better against the eyeliner.

For the Versailles look, avoid lipstick altogether. Use either nude lip gloss, or use a little foundation on your lips to give them more of a blank look. Hizaki's look is very much, in my opinion, that of a blank canvas upon which the eyes are painted. Draw attention away from everything else in favour of the eyes, because they're incredibly important to the look.

Your eyebrows are probably another factor. Asians, forgive me, aren't particularly known for having much of an eyebrow growth, so a lot of visual kei bands have plucked-out or foundation'd-over eyebrows, or very little eyebrow, and the eyebrow itself is pencilled in.
The pencilling for this kind of look starts from a little inward of where the real eyebrow starts, you tend to find, and it doesn't dramatically arch or tadpole, just has an upward-slanting curve that reaches to about halfway across the eyes.
If you don't want to do that, don't worry at all. Keep your eyebrows in good condition, neat, and maybe a little thinner and more arched.

Also, don't believe that Caucasians can't work the Asian styles. They so can! So they might not look Asian, but it can always be changed to fit, and it flatters a lot of people. Much of the visual kei makeup is done so as to give the impression of more Caucasian features, no? (For those of you who'll explode over this, take for example the trend for having eye surgery for a double eyelid. I don't mean it like they're trying to look more like 'white' people, simply that it makes the eyes larger and Caucasians already have these kinds of features.) Since you already have those, I guess now it's your job to meet the visual kei style halfway. Versailles go for quite a European look, so work with that.


Sorry for this totally too long ramble. I hope it helped a little!