Some Things Ive Learned About 'Passing'
First and foremost, I am no expert - Youtube and/or other subs almost certainly have actual tutorials and instructions to do hair and makeup etc. I am also not recommending everyone do this. Im not trying to tell anyone 'how to be trans'. This is for people that have posted stuff like 'I am not passing and it hurts' or otherwise have expressed that they wish to 'blend in better'.
But
Here are some things I have learned about passing without passing:
Blending in is passing in my humble opinion. If people dont look up from across the produce section and only really clock you passing in an aisle or at checkout etc, youre close enough to passing. Even the S tier transwomen will eventually get clocked face to face. Someone somewhere will pick up something that most dont. Its just a reality we have to live with - reasonable expectations also help keep you pleasantly surprised more often than crushingly disappointed if/when it does happen.
Hair:
A color that blends with your eyebrows is going to work best - platinum blonde hair with dark eyebrows 'pops' and makes people look.
The right hairstyle for your face shape matters a lot too. Longer faces will want shorter hair; shoulder length and layered to give the illusion of width to the face. Less on top is better than more on top; more hair on top stacked up just makes your face look even longer and head bigger overall. Wider faces can get away with longer hair and updos that kind of stack hair on top of the head. I have also noticed that curtain bangs really help to make your forehead smoothly blend in to the rest of your face and head shape. There are tons of 'charts' available online to correlate face shape to hair style; use them!
Makeup:
Most of the time, less is more. I get far fewer looks without lipstick, for instance. Yes, I absolutely love my burgundy lipstick, my brown lipstick, and my bright red...but it pops. It catches attention, and you are trying to not catch attention. I avoid any bright colors at all, unless Im going to a place that is 'for us' like a nightclub or bar, and simply being there garners attention. That means skin tones that blend in with my own skin tone yet highlight things. Eyeshadow is a brownish tan color, slightly darker than my natural skin. Cheekbone highlight is also subtle, not strong as in not terribly darker than the rest of my face. The little bit of shadow coverup I have to do is just using a color corrector, not foundation. I blend it in and out, then apply a powder that is the same color as my skin. That does work for me because I only have a very faint shadow on my upper lip and a tiny bit on my chin; if you have a strong shadow that probably wont work for you...but its worth a shot! Eyeliner is minimal and I use browns labeled stuff like 'coffee' and 'espresso'. I use very light mascara too. No blush to add a rosy red to my cheeks; nothing at all that 'pops'. About half of my face has no makeup, overall. Everything I do smoothly 'blends out' to my natural skin tones.
Im also gonna include scent here: careful not to overdo it. I prefer a very subtle scent; if you get close yes you will get a light wafting of my scent, but you wont smell me from 10 feet away. I like soft, subtle stuff - specifically vanilla type scents. I used a 'milk and honey' body wash, which is very similar to vanilla. Body lotion is vanilla cashmere, and I just give a very light squirt of Victoria Secret 'Bare Vanilla' shimmer.
Shape:
Finding a feminine shape to compliment your own body shape matters too, of course. That goes beyond growing breasts and/or using a mastectomy bra. Most of us dont really have hips, so hip pads probably come into play for you just like me. Im not talking those silly looking small hip pads, though some do work...they just usually dont look very natural. I use large hip pads that, like my makeup, 'fade out' and blend in to my body shape. Easy for me, sure - Im very thin. But also far from impossible for those of us that are larger girls. The goal is smooth, flowing curvature. This also means avoiding excessively large breasts - personally, I found that a nice a cup works better than the B cups I like so much. It gives me a nice, flowingly smooth silhouette. It 'fits'. I do have the Bs on in this photo, but standing up and walking around, the As definitely work better. The key is something that matches your body size and type - again, avoiding things that 'pop'.
Clothing:
What you wear is also a big deal. Once again, we're avoiding exaggerated styles and colors. Pink dresses on a 6' tall transwomen dont often work. Think more like 'suburban soccer mom'. Button downs, v necks, t shirts. Noting that is big and 'flowy' at the bottom - thats a man shape. We want to project the illusion of a female shape, so something that tapers in at the middle and juuuust flares out at the bottom - but doesnt fit like a parachute hanging off of you. Your chosen breast size also comes into play here - too large and the shirt hangs off of them and does that parachute thing.
I prefer to wear dark tops with light pants or skirts. The dark top makes your torso look smaller, and the lighter pants make your hips and lower body look larger. Though tall, vertical pinstripes also work for me; they add a 'thinning effect' even though I am already thin. Avoid horizontal stripes - they just make you look wider, and men are wider up top than from the waist down. We want to be thinner up top and wider from the waist down.
For me, wide leg jeans work wonders. We're not talking Jncos here, just something that adds a bit of flowing grace to your steps. I do also wear 'skinny jeans' at times, which do work well with the hip pads I wear. I just have to avoid very light colors and pick my outfits a bit more carefully; mid-dark jeans work to hide the pads. I cannot wear white tight pants as the seams show. I do also avoid leggings; they are too tight and despite having a fairly feminine natural shape, its not quite feminine enough to pull it off. I can wear white straight leg or wide leg jeans though.
Ill go ahead and include jewelry here too: Basics work perfectly fine. Some earrings is about all that you *need* and even that is debatable. I usually wear a small pair of hoop earrings, an alexandrite ring, and thats about it. Now and then a small tasteful necklace...but lately its been just the earrings and ring. I have bracelets but I dont really wear them any more as I refine my presentation. I even forget the earrings now and then.
Mannerisms:
Once you have all of the above figured out, the last piece of the puzzle: how you move and conduct yourself. I have thought I clocked transwomen before based on mannerisms alone, and then saw that no, it was a CIS woman that I was looking at. It was her gait: she was walking stompy and generally moving like a man. She was also quite top heavy. Ive done this a few times with taller women, but not all of them - and the difference was how they were standing or walking or moving.
Learn the walk. Roll your shoulder forward a bit and keep your elbows close. The goal here is to make your upper body 'smaller'. Dont use jerky movements; move in a flowing way. Not overexaggerated, just smooth. Thats the key to all of this: smooth and soft. Dont watch a tutorial and start wildly throwing your hips around. Subtle is more passing than 'look at me Im walking like a girl'. There are several different ways; for me and my body size and shape, this is what works best:
When I step, I dont throw my hips and butt around. As I take a step, its a subtle, smooth pivot up and outward at roughly a 45 degree angle. As my leg goes back, a slight roll inward, and then as my foot leave the ground, that hip sways in while the other does the initial pivot/roll up and out. That 'sway in' is slightly snappy and makes my butt kind of 'recoil' and jiggle just a little. We arent walking a catwalk here, we're just going to the produce section LOL. Other shapes and sizes may need to do different motions; its not a one size fits all thing like so many tutorials suggest. Its going to take experimentation and practice to find what works best for you.
I also keep a slight, upturned smile, so I dont have RBF/manface. That slight smile tightens your cheeks a bit and gives you that cute little smile line that a lot of women have. It also plumps your face up at your cheekbones juuuust a little. It also makes you look approachable, not 'keep away from me'.
Conclusion:
I am certainly not passing in a face to face interaction, though yes sometimes it appears that I did indeed fool someone. I have been catcalled in public on campus. I have caught guys checking me out numerous, almost countless times now. But just as often as those things happen, someone does clock me from a bit of a distance. We need reasonable expectations too. Most or all of us in this sub arent going to be S tier transwomen, and its a reality we need to accept. If everyone around you isnt staring at you from across the place, youre doing well. Theyre gonna see when you pass right by each other, and that little half smile and a brief greeting in passing keeps things less 'weird'. Theyre making it weird, not us - but we need to make an effort to make it feel normal and natural. Averting our eyes and acting anti-social is also 'not passing'.