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My All-Time Favourite Make-Up Tricks

I know a thing or two about good make-up – which is why I am sharing some of my all-time favourite tips and tricks. From different mascara techniques to why adding blusher to the bridge of your nose can transform your entire look, these are the hacks that I have picked up after years in the beauty business.

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Your Lashes

I’d never given much thought to my mascara technique until I started covering beauty backstage at the shows. Among the many tricks I picked up was how to use your mascara wand to create different eye looks. Want your lashes to emphasise a feline flick? Swipe your wand through the hairs at a horizontal angle, gently pulling them out sideways. Want a wider, rounded effect to complement a soft halo of shadow? Use your mascara wand to pull the lashes upwards and finish by accentuating the very ends of your lashes with the tip of the brush. If I’m going big on liquid liner, I quite often only add mascara to my bottom lashes. It somehow balances out the drama that’s happening up top. When it comes to formula, I like something that has more of a gel-like consistency as opposed to anything too creamy. The Rubberlash mascara from make-up artist Isamaya French’s debut line has a real vinyl quality making it easy to use in different ways.

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Blush To Your Nose

If I could only implore you to try just one of these tricks it would be my failsafe blusher tip, which is to always add blusher to the bridge of your nose as well as your cheeks. I can’t emphasise what a difference it makes, brightening everything up, pulling it all together and just giving you an imperceptible glow of health. Any formula will work, so stick with what you love, but if you are in the market to try something new, I keep Glossier’s Cloud Paint in ‘Dusk’, Monika Blunder’s Liquid Flush in ‘Rome’ and Pacifica’s Fluffy Blush in ‘Bloom’ on rotation.

Use Highlighter First

Although I prefer lighter coverage and a more natural-looking base, I often find myself applying foundation all over my face, whether it’s needed or not. Recently, however, I’ve taken to applying a highlighter before my foundation and concealer instead of afterwards. This easy switch means that because my skin already has a lovely luminosity to it, I only apply base make-up to the areas that really need it, like around my nose and on any areas of hyperpigmentation. I’m hooked on Fenty’s Eaze Drop’Lit in ‘Taffy Topaz’, which is a champagne-flecked liquid highlighter that makes you look like you’ve had the best facial of your life. Powder formulas will work if they’re your thing, but I’d advise using a damp beauty blender to pat on your foundation and avoid dragging the pigment.

Red + Blue = White

Rethink Your Lip Liner

Lip liner is one of those products that, despite being tricky to perfect, is essential if you want your lipstick to look crisp and the colour to stay put. If, like me, you struggle to line your lips convincingly, start at the corners and gently glide the pencil up to the cupid’s bow. Going in this direction is somehow more fool proof and produces fewer wobbles – and, because the way pencil naturally glides outside your natural lip line, it’ll give the effect of a fuller shape. Even if I’m not wearing lipstick, I use the liner end of something neutral like Sculpted by Aimee’s Undressed Lip Duo in ‘Nude’ to create the shape, then blur the edges of the line inwards with a little lip balm.

Hands up who doesn’t want whiter teeth? Thought so. While you can obviously go down the whitening route, applying a slick of red lipstick is a faster (not to mention cheaper) way to cheat a brighter smile. The key to getting it right is to pick the right shade of red. Steer clear of orange-based options and instead look for blue-based reds. Because blue sits opposite yellow on the colour wheel, anything with a blue undertone will cancel out any yellow tones in your teeth. Lisa Eldridge’s True Velvet Lip Colour in ‘Velvet Ribbon’ glides on like a dream but L’Oréal’s Color Riche

Satin in ‘Lipstick is Not a Yes’ is a more affordable option.

Trick Of The Eye

Although I love the look of liquid liner, my application technique is shaky at best. One way I get around this is my ‘tail tips’ technique. Instead of drawing a whole line across your lash line and out to the corners (which requires a steadier hand) I create small tails at the outer corners of each eye. Not only are they much easier to do, they also give the illusion of elongating the eyes. To create them, I like to gently hold my eyelids taut (looser lids courtesy of a recent 40th birthday) and, working from the outside in, I draw a little tail that connects to the edge of my top lash line. The end of the tip should roughly start where you can feel your brow bone. If you need some definition along your top lash line, a pencil liner smudged into the lashes is a quick and infinitely easier solution. A liquid liner I really rate is Pat McGrath’s Perma Precision Liquid Liner in ‘Extreme Black’.

Lighten Up

If you’re only using your concealer to hide dark circles and spots then you’re missing a trick. One of my favourite tips is to use my concealer to trick the eye into thinking my face looks a lot brighter and more lifted than it really is. Quite often it’s enough to forgo my foundation altogether. The way I do it is by drawing on four lines with my product of choice, which at the moment is Vieve’s excellent Modern Radiance Concealer. Line number one is from brow tip to hairline; line two sweeps under the eye and out to the temple; line three hugs the cheekbone and goes out towards the ear; and line four hovers above the jawline and goes out to the ear. For maximum impact you want to just buff and blend enough for the lines to disappear but not so much sthat you lose them altogether. For this it has to be a damp beauty blender. Work into your skin gently, then sit back and marvel at your mini facelift.