Suck Less: Where There's a Willam, There's a Way

by Willam Belli

  16 Curl your lashes and put on mascara. Put the wand into the base of your lashes and slowly rotate the wand as you pull it out. Like how you would slowly withdraw your dick if the condom broke.

  Now, my brows are light because Jesus loves me and made me blond. If you have to glue them down, do your thing, but do thin layers of glue, letting each dry thoroughly, or it will look like you used Ore-Ida instant mashed potatoes. I also used to sweat a bunch before the Botox, and that never helped. So, in keeping with the “Work smarter, not harder” Suck Less mantra, here are some ways to be lazy but look good:

  a) Bleach your brows. It changes the whole dynamic of a face. It instantly makes your eyes the darkest thing on your face and thereby the focus, adding smolderocity like you’re being lit for a 1940s movie. Once lightened, you can cover them with creams, powders, and a multitude of other shit to hide the actual hair texture. Glue a whole buncha shit to them. Make a butterfly, a gemstone fantasy, or a greasy, mascara-smeared mess.

  For this, I tipped my makeup kit upside down, and any crystals, glitter, or sequins that fell out got glued to my face in Iceland.

  b) Pull your brows up into a more feminine spot by using face tapes. This is also great for anyone older, along with distance, darkness, and rose-colored lightbulbs. Miss Fame does this with her face; otherwise, she looks like a transvestite Mr. Magoo.

  The Rolls Royce of Drag…

  c) Put physical barriers between other people’s eyes and your actual brows: headbands, glasses, fringe/bangs, hats.

  d) If you have to glue your brows down, practice on your hairy-dude feet with the glue or your pubes.

  … and the Jeep Wrangler of Drag.

  HOW TO FAKE A BLACK EYE

  The trashiest sound in America is a woman clicking her tongue ring on her teeth in Walmart. This look evokes all the hallmarks that go along with that mental image. Applying a sallow, yellowish base tone in the orbital perimeter will give dimension to bruised tones, which will give the effect you need. Nothing says “I’ve recently had problems interacting with others” more than facial wounds. People will not fuck with you when you show up bruised at work. If you’re in retail, they’ll probably let you just fold shirts in the back instead of dealing with impressionable customers.

  If you’re trying to fake it for family court or something, you want to juxtapose it with upstanding things like clean shoes. You can be a wreck from the neck up, but don’t be beat up from the feet up. Don’t wear sneakers to court ever. PS: If you receive a summons, borrow a baby. Even better if it’s a crier. The judge will usually bump up your case to the top of his docket to get rid of the potential disruptions. Babies definitely help with the sympathy factor. I fuck a lawyer and he told me so yeah.

  17 Grab a wispy set of lashes that will blend with your own. Test out a strip of lashes and make sure they don’t hit the inner brow bone before you’ve glued them on. Nothing says “I’m an amateur” more than ill-fitting lashes. Trim as needed and glue the sucker to your face. I use tweezers to carefully press them into the still-impressionable mascara. I lightly coat them with more mascara.

  18 Take a second pair of lashes with a little more oomph and trim them so they fit from the center of your pupil to wherever you want them to end. Hit them with a little more mascara because the eyes are the windows to the soul, and my soul is black as fuck.

  19 This last pair of lashes can be either the bit you trimmed from the second pair or a new pair. Gluing a section of a spiky or longer lash from the outer pupil to the crease area will help swoop up the whole eye. There is no need to glue the lash to the actual lash line at this point. Nothing wrong with taking a selfie now with your eyes looking down, up, or sideways to plan how to look cute with that night’s face.

  20 Fuck. I forgot to tell you to wash your hands before you started. Sorry.

  21 Put a thin coat of mascara on the bottom lashes using the rotating wand trick you probably failed at before. Open your mouth really wide too, because that’ll help make you look less stupid, I bet. Now, using tweezers, slide the fake lashes up under the lower lashes and place them next to the actual lashes so they look like they’re growing outta your face.

  22 Pucker your lips and smile or make whatever stupid face you need to so you can figure out where to put on some blush. You want something glowy that radiates like an Amber Alert. Then put more on, because sometimes it’s the only indicator that you’re not a dyke.

  23 Line Overline your lips with a pencil that’s a shade darker than your butthole. Then fill in the entire lip area with a shade matching your asslips. Just peek at your pucker and then you have an honest-to-God nude shade that is perfectly dialed in to your exact complexion. #colormatchyourbutthole.

  24 Smear some more shit on your lips. You’re probably missing the open bar somewhere and your friends hate you. I personally usually go for the kinda colors I see in the pubic bushes of douche bags who would call me a fag before they got schwasted but will shrug and say YOLO after last call when I’m the last option upright.

  25 Do your hair or pick it up off the closet floor. Hopefully, people will like you for your personality. You tried.

  MY DRAG KIT

  A FEW LIGHT ESSENTIALS:

  TISSUES

  DICK TAPE

  NAILS OR SOMETHING TO AT LEAST CLEAN THE DIRT OUT FROM UNDER THEM IF YOU’RE “NATURAL”

  SUPERGLUE

  SAFETY PINS

  SCISSORS

  USUALLY SOME PILLS AT THE BOTTOM OF MY MAKEUP KIT

  HAIRPINS

  Q-TIPS

  POWDER PUFF

  MAKEUP SPONGE

  BRUSHES, INCLUDING A TINY BRUSH (GOOD FOR GLUING DOWN BROWS OR BRUSHING OUT LASH CLUMPS)

  FINGERS

  PANTS YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT, BECAUSE YOU’LL INEVITABLY WIPE YOUR FINGERS ON THEM

  CLOWN WHITE

  BEARD-COVERING COLOR

  HAIR HAT

  THREE SHADES OF HEAVY CONCEALER OR BASE (ONE IN YOUR SKIN TONE, ONE A SHADE LIGHTER, AND ONE A SHADE DARKER)

  CONTOUR SHADE (CREAM AND POWDER)

  FOUNDATION (AEROSOL OR LIQUID)

  HIGHLIGHT POWDER (FAIR, BUFF, OR BANANA)

  BLUSH

  GLITTER (CREAM AND LOOSE)

  EYELASH CURLER (I USE THE BILLY B ONE SINCE HE TOLD ME IT’S BETTER COPY OF THE KEVYN AUCOIN ONE, WHICH WAS A COPY OF THE SHU UEMURA)

  LASHES (I HAVE THREE PAIRS ON THE TOP AND ONE ON THE BOTTOM)

  ELMER’S GLUE (PURPLE ONE)

  BLACK EYELINER

  LIQUID EYELINER

  MASCARA

  EYE SHADOW

  BROW COLOR

  LIP PENCILS

  LIP COLOR

  2

  How to SUCK LESS at

  BEING A HAIRLESS CREATURE OF GOD

  I am not a Kardashian fan. That being said, I’m also not an anti-Kardashian. They’re smart, or, if not, at least smart enough to get smarter people than them to handle their empires. They let others tend to their business and branding opportunities in the fields of sex tapes, hair extensions, and affordable fashions by Kmart because they’re busy taking selfies and getting hair removal probably. Armenians are hairy as fuck, and that’s coming from an Italian cross-dresser. The Kardashian women have been up front about the massive amounts of hair removal they’ve undergone, and I respect the fuck outta them for that. I’ve electrolyzed my chest, lasered my balls and no!no!’d my no-no parts. I appreciate each Kim, Kourt, and Khatever because it looks like they probably waxed everything from their bottom lash down. Which is a good thing, because an Armenian wiping their ass can be like getting peanut butter out of a shag carpet.

  Now, here’s the thing about hair down there: Say I invite someone over for sex and explain, “Hey, I have a dog.” It’s a fair warning there might be a chew toy or maybe a pee-pee pad. But if I open the door and it looks like I actually have an ape with an attitude problem, it’s not justified. Like, it’s cool to have a dog, and everyone knows dogs can be a mess, just like everyone kno
ws hair grows down there. It’s up to you to keep it in check.

  What I’m saying is to at least trim that shit. Like, give it a blunt edge. You don’t want it long enough that you can identify a curl pattern or dye swatch. Like “Oh, your chest hair is a 27 honey blond with a loose body wave.” I want as little variation as possible in that below-the-equator area. Is almost cutting piss parts in the shower fun for anyone? No. Razors, plucking, and waxing are taxing. I prefer for my Hot Pocket not to look like its microwave-safe cooking sleeve is actually a bath mat made of pubes. But again—you do you regarding your crotch and all. But just so you know, socially acceptable pubes usually range somewhere between “some” and “enough to exfoliate your partner’s face off.”

  LASER works the same as tattoo removal. It focuses on the color in the hair follicle and zaps it to the root the same way tattoo removal technology works (i.e., yellow, white, and light inks are virtually impossible to remove). Pain-wise, it’s basically like snapping a rubber band on your skin. A lot. Not enough to throb afterward but enough to annoy you and make you wanna smack a bitch. It works best on dark hair with light skin. Blond hair and red hair on tan skin are the hardest, hence I’ve relied on…

  ELECTROLYSIS uses direct current via an electrode needle, set off while inserted next to the hair shaft just under your skin. This has the best and most proven results, but it’s also the most painful. I had ingrowns galore throughout the year I did this because it basically kills the hair in the follicle, and that dies and falls out. The bulb then rests for a minute and grows a new hair, which sometimes has trouble breaking through the skin and curls up inside itself (that’s an ingrown). This cycle of grow and zap usually takes two or more tries before that hair will not be seen again. Keep in mind, some follicles have two or three hairs growing out of them, so the procedure will sound like a bug zapper sometimes. Seriously, look down your shirt at your nipple. Now, really look at your nipple like the dirty little chew toy it is. You’ll see some of the hair follicles around it have multiple hairs growing from them. Betcha didn’t know that, huh? The pain level on electrolysis was enough to make me smoke some weed before I went in each time. With laser and electrolysis, you can say BGB to the tough choice of whether it’s cool to use the same razor for your asshole and face. It was always such a moral dilemma for me.

  Say no to any As Seen on TV shit like that zappity-zap piece of shit that advertises heavenly pulses of pain-free light to get rid of hair. That boat don’t float.

  SHAVING is a great, but don’t be fooled by multiple-blade gimmickry. Sometimes one blade is the best way to avoid ingrowns and bumps. Lemme splain. See, the first blade that catches the hair pulls it and stretches it, then the following blade(s) snaps it off, making it want to curl and retract up under the skin, like what a rubber band does when it breaks. That can cause an ingrown. Better to single-blade it or take your time with a multiblade. Always shave in the direction the hair grows in areas where friction can occur, like your thigh gap or any chub-rub areas you might have. Take care not to shave areas that rub together before activities because your own thighs can create a ham sandwich of heated friction that isn’t on anyone’s menu.

  DEPILATORIES like Nair are great but can irritate the skin. You also can’t do anything else really while using them if you don’t want to fuck up your furniture, answer your door, or scare the fuck outta anyone you’re staying with.

  WAXING rips the hair out by the root, and the results last at least twice as long as shaving. Don’t do this and hit the beach; I did it, and two days later I had a bump garden no one wanted to visit. It was either one of two things or a mix of the two: folliculitis, which is an irritation of the skin resulting in whiteheads—the worst chub rub ever—or ingrown hairs. Ingrown hairs can be cured only by removal or the little fuckers growing out on their own (don’t hold your breath). The worst part about waxing is allowing the hair to get long enough for you to actually go through with it.

  Soaking a cloth in hot Epsom-salted water and applying it to the ingrown hair area really helps alleviate it. It dries the skin out and eliminates bacteria so new growth can pop through undeterred. Picking the hairs out with dirty safety pins is my favorite way but not recommended unless you’re a skank. Both folliculitis and ingrowns are best treated with exfoliation and Tend Skin (an over-the-counter beta hydroxy, which means it’s a light acid that will burn the shit outta your skin, removing the top layer, thereby giving the impacted hairs a better chance of poking through). It’s a godsend for making sure your beard doesn’t look all Nestlé Crunch textured after shaving too frequently or too close, or from using that slightly rusted razor on the edge of the tub from last week. The level of sting when applying a beta hydroxy is like if you’re eating salt-and-vinegar chips while you have a cold sore, but it’s totally worth the purchase.

  At least nothing is seeping, right?

  3

  How to SUCK LESS at

  COVERING SKIN PROBLEMS

  Skin issues are a surefire way to make you not wanna go outside. It’s, like, the worst thing ever. What’s the second worst thing? Clowns. So if you combine them, the double negative equals a positive.

  Everyone from Boy George and Leigh Bowery to Rihanna has used tranimalistic (punk + clown + avant-garde = tranimal) methods to achieve fierce looks. Try placing a fishnet stocking or anything with a texture on your face after your foundation and apply color to achieve a pattern that will maybe mask the irregularity of cystic acne.

  Shoot for the stars, ’cause you’ll never be one. The iconic Raven told Tyra that and, oooops, she wasn’t wrong. Some reality shows purport to find the next big something but fail more often than they succeed. #FACT. So if you want a constellation worth of stars, just use the backing of a sheet of some star stickers, apply makeup like a stencil, and serve straight-up planetarium puss.

  Or just go straight-up whore clown and cover what you need to cover with clown white and glitter.

  Here’s look is just about flawless skin. Some would say it’s a plain or neutral face, but I think highlighting the natural beauty of the skin is all you really need when you have a giant herpes sore pulsating along to the very beat of its host’s heart. I’ve been getting cold sores in the same spot on my lip since I was a kid, and I know plenty of other people who have been getting them waaaay before they coulda gotten herpes from doing anything fun and sticky. I have no shame in talking about it. I had a first-grade photo of me with a scabby lip, and I was called Herpules by my classmates every time I had one. I only ever got them from stress. So of course when writing this book I thought, “I should really talk about covering scabs or cold sores ’cause plenty of people get them,” but then I crossed it out because no one on Craigslist replied to my ad seeking their scabby services. But lo and behold, when the writing was complete and I started shooting the pics for Suck Less, I got one.

  I prefer an aerosol foundation (like Diorskin Airflash) when I have a cold sore, because semi-seeping scabs are like good English muffins: They got hella nooks and crannies, and you wanna get full coverage without disrupting the healing process by touching them a bunch. Don’t use a brush, because you’ll run the risk of forgetting to wash it and then use it again. Eww. Random bit of Willam wisdom: If you’re prone to cold sores, try to eat foods high in lysine (seafood, eggs, beans, meat, and cheese) and avoid putting into your body foods with lots of acidity or arginine and especially genitalia with scabbing.

  WILLAM

  Wig: James the Gemini. Cold Sore: Model’s own.

  COVERING SKIN PROBLEMS

  This makeup was a Herpulean effort.

  4

  How to SUCK LESS at

  ZITS

  You ever pop a zit so big you swear it squeals like a lobster hitting hot water? I know it’s fun and it makes you feel like you actually are taking control of the situation, but in reality, you’re making it worse. Whiteheads happen when oil is trapped in a pore on your face. The best general way to remove these if you have a ton of them
is with what can be considered an over-the-counter peel with some ingredients in it that are hard to pronounce (I like Neutrogena Healthy Skin Face Lotion with alpha hydroxy). If you just try to pop them, chances are you’ll force the pore clog down further into your skin and you’ll increase the chances of residual redness, inflammation, and your genitals not being caressed by others.

  Blackheads are simply whiteheads that have oxidized, meaning the clog has been open to the air and turns a darker color. If you squeeze your nose and pus comes out, you should maybe not do that ’cause it’s nasty. If you do it anyway, the best spot to wipe your hand is the back lower leg of your pants. No one notices stains there.

  Now, figure out why these blemishes are present. Is your hair greasy? Do you wash your makeup off but forget to wash your ears? Do you get beard burn on your face when you make out with dudes with goatees? I never understand people who can fall asleep in their drag or makeup. The best part about getting it all off you is blowing your nose in the shower. You feel so much better after clearing the pipes.

  I know no one wants bad skin, but just going at your face with whatever you think will help is about as useful as doing your hair with a dick. My skin problems were caused by a multitude of factors. I was using too much of the wrong makeup. I mistakenly assumed that since Proactiv was good enough for Jessica Simpson, it was good enough for me. In addition, I was on planes almost every other day, which made my skin dryer than Waffle House hash browns and just as scattered, smothered and bothered. Stress was also a major issue. (I was regularly performing in a trio called DWV, and issues with the D and V members of the group forced me to downsize into just meWme. I’d say D and V were the cause of my stress, but I should note that comparing my former coworkers to actual VD is unfair to venereal diseases.) My face got better once I eliminated the stressors and started on a skin regime of simple Neutrogena products and a round of Accutane (Roaccutane in Australia).