When I was younger, I was obsessed with Nina Dobrev’s makeup look from The Vampire Diaries. At 16, I tried my best to emulate her smoky eye, following the tutorials I found online to a T. But no matter how hard I tried, my eyelids wouldn’t cooperate. I didn’t have the hollowed eyesockets that the actress became famous for. Every makeup guru who taught me to shade in the corners of my eyes and make circles above my pupil only had me looking like I got a black eye. In short, makeup for my Asian-American face needed to be different.

Of course, my lack of makeup skills at that age played a major role, but even a professional wouldn’t have been able to copy Dobrev’s look one-to-one on my face.

To my own surprise, it didn’t deter me all that much. After all, I had a stack of Japanese magazines at my disposal that provided thorough step-by-step guides on how to do makeup for Asian faces. The disappointment only came when I realized that those, too, didn’t work on my face. Because I have neither classic American nor Asian eyelids, I had something in between.

Nowadays, there are plenty of beauty influencers similar to myself who have made makeup looks on Asian American faces much easier to follow. At 30 now, I’ve perfected makeup for halfies (as we like to call ourselves), and feel pretty confident in the beauty routine I’ve built for myself. I don’t have monolids, nor do I have hooded lids. I have slim double eyelids, which, when puffy, look like monolids.

Beyond just the eye makeup, though, I wanted to write out my full makeup routine for someone with yellow undertones and tons of freckles. I use a mix of high and low-end products to create an easy, everyday makeup look that can be completed in under 10 minutes. See below!