7. Kiss And Make Up

I'm not an expert on make-up at all so this, more than any other page, is a rather random collection of bits of received advice and guesses. I've once been made-up by a trained beautician and the effect was dramatically better than I've ever achieved since. However, I'm getting better with practice, and the art is to take your time and learn from mistakes, which is where photographs help you to spot where you're going wrong.

I shave an hour or more before I want to get really well made-up, then again carefully against the growth of hair just before starting. This reduces the five-o'clock shadow, but can be very bad for your skin, so take care. Before applying makeup, always wash your face properly and apply moisturiser. The idea is to remove dead and flakey skin, and leave the best possible surface to work on. The more care you take, the better condition your skin will be in when you come to remove the stuff as well, so don't rush to get the paint brush out immediately.

Apply foundation (see my recomendations page) that matches your skin tone. With your fingers, smooth it over your face (not the same as rubbing it in), using as little as possible. The chin area is usually the hardest as it'll be slightly blue from beard growth. Apply some to your eye sockets and below your eyes to hide those bags and provide a base for eye makeup. A concealer (a pencil of thicker foundation) can be used to hide blemishes and more difficult tones, but you can't colour your whole face in like this, so you might need to search out 'Dermablend' which is a specialist foundation used for hiding beard growth. Always try to blend areas together, to avoid a patchwork face. Once the foundation is in place, a little powder over the surface will even things out and stop you getting shiny. Brush off any excess with a proper makeup brush and then you can start with the wild colours.

Lips are best outlined with a lip-liner that's a shade or two darker than your lipstick. You can follow the outline of your lips, but with a little care it's OK to draw a slightly fuller outline as male lips are naturally thinner than women's. Before you go adding half an inch all round your mouth though, have a look at the models on the cover of magazines and notice the shape that you're going for. Sometimes it's easier to use lip liner once you've experimented with lipstick and worked out what looks good for you. Paint in your top lip, then squeeze your lips together to get a similar outline on the lower lip. Paint that in and re-touch your top lip. Get rid of any excess by kissing a tissue, then use something like Lip-cote to fix your lipstick in place.

I don't really believe in blusher, as it's hard not to get this very wrong. If you are going to use it, the aim is to emphasise (or draw in) an attractive cheek bone, making you look thinner. If you're skinny, the effect is to make you look like you've been off your food and missing your sleep. If you're 'chunky', the effect is usually to make you look like you've been on the piss for the last week. If you do use it my only advice is to keep it to a minimum and be careful to choose a neutral colour only a shade darker than your skin.

The idea of eyeshadow is to try to emulate the effect of just having had sex (honestly), which causes the eyelids to darken, and the eyes to look wider and more 'open'. Look in the magazines for the latest styles and colours, but (as I understand it) the basic plan is as follows:

• Lightly apply the palest colour to the whole eyelid, to give something for the other colours to blend into.
• Use progressively darker colours for the middle and outside of the lid (furthest from your nose) and blend these together with a brush. Experts will tell you that for strongly made up eyes, you should build up the colour gradually, rather than spooning it on, and use a different brush for each colour to avoid merging it all into one big mush.
• Draw along your top lid with an eyeliner. A Khol pencil is easiest, but if you can keep still whilst it dries, a liquid liner will give a very sharply defined dark line. Apply a little more to the top lid at the outside edge, to extend your eye outwards and upwards.
• If you apply eyeliner to your bottom lid, it can make your eyes seem smaller and 'mean' looking. If you do wish to, it's a better bet to start three quarters of the way away from your nose and just do the last bit.
• Get a lash curling grip (looks like a particularly nasty torture device) and use it on your top lashes for twenty seconds or so, pushing it into your eye socket to get a grip on things.
• Put on mascara by trying to paint each eyelash in turn. This usually ends up everywhere and has to be tidied up with a cotton wool bud.

And last but not least, remember to clean makeup brushes and pads regularly, as they're designed to collect bacteria and other gunk. Throw out mascara (some say as quickly as three months after you first use it) as it is a nice warm damp container that bugs'll just love (no, not the cartoon rabbit). Hygiene is vital for makeup to stop eye infections and bad skin.