The fundamental purpose of stage makeup is to correct the effects of distance and light that would otherwise make your face completely disappear. Stage makeup serves a totally different purpose than regular every day makeup. Stage makeup is a necessity anytime you will perform on a stage, or any place with stage lights.

By repainting your facial features extra big, extra bright, and extra dark, an optical illusion is created such that your face appears "normal" and visible from great distances and under bright lights.

Properly done stage makeup will not resemble regular makeup. It will be very much heavier than even the heaviest evening application of makeup that any reasonable person would wear. Remember, you need a lot of extra color and paint just to appear normal on stage!

Stage makeup is very tricky for most people. It’s layers thick and it looks very garish. Even if it looks very dark while it’s being done, it still may fade under the bright stage lights.