FIRST YOU PURGE

Why bother organizing your makeup? Because it makes it easier to get ready. Just like it’s easier to find an outfit to wear to work in the morning when your closet isn’t crowded with outdated clothes, doing your makeup is simple and quick when you open the drawer or cabinet and everything you want to use is right there in front of you. Put everything in its place and I promise that you’ll be able to put your makeup on in five minutes. Searching for your favourite eyeshadow or cleaning up foundation that spilled because the bottle cap is broken wastes valuable time. But if you take some extra time to organize, toss out old stuff and repackaged broken things – do it twice a year – you’ll save yourself time every day. You’ll feel great and in control.

To start, empty out your makeup drawer, bag or cabinet and take a good look at everything that was in there. Get rid of anything that’s broken, leaking or generally a mess. If you can, transfer the product into a new container. Liquid foundation can be poured into a new bottle and lipsticks with broken caps can be sliced off and put into a palette or even those day-of-the-week pillboxes they sell at the drugstore. Lip and eye pencils that are missing caps should go in clean ziploc bags. But broken powder compacts, blush or eyeshadow really should be tossed. If it’s your absolute favourite shade – and the company doesn’t make it anymore – then keep it in a ziploc bag. Otherwise, toss it and treat yourself to a new one.

The next step is to get rid of anything you’ve had for at least two years and haven’t touched. Maybe it was some trendy colour you loved in a magazine but hated when you go it home. Or the texture never felt right on your skin. Or the formula made you break out. Whatever the reason, get rid of it. Put all that stuff that you’ve barely – if ever – used in a box to donate to people who may be able to use it, such as a theater group or a women’s shelter.

Now that you’ve cleared away the messy stuff and the stuff you know you’re never going to wear, it’s time to turn a critical eye to your basics. Start with your foundation. You really need only two at the most. Open each one up and smell it. If any have a weird odor – or if the consistency seems funny – that’s your cue to put it in the trash. Now that you’ve weeded out any that are past their expiration dates, grab a mirror, apply a swipe of each of the remaining foundations to your cheek and check the results in natural light. Only the ones that disappear into your skin are worth keeping.

Next, take a look at all your lipsticks. I find that this is the products many women tend to overbuy. If you’re one of those women, chances are you’re about to discover more lipsticks than you ever thought you had. Lipsticks can be mixed to make a better colour out of two that aren’t quite right. Put them in a palette and experiment if that’s something you enjoy. Next, do the same analysis on your eyeshadows and blushes.

As long as you’ve got all your makeup out, now is a good time to do a little maintenance work. Use a q-tip dipped in alcohol to clean off your makeup cases, replace old sponges and powder puffs and check to see if any of your makeup is past its prime.

EXPIRATION DATES

Here is a general timetable for your makeup’s life span:

• Foundation – 12 to 18 months
• Concealer – 1 year
• Powder – 2 years
• Mascara – 3 to 6 months
• Lipstick – 12 to 18 months
• Lip or eye pencil – 1 year
• Eyeshadow – 1 year
• Powder blush – 2 years
• Cream blush – 6 months to 1 year
• Moisturizer – 12 to 18 months
• Eye cream – 1 year
• SPF lotion – 1 year

THEN YOU SPLURGE

Now that your makeup has been thoroughly weeded out and well organized, you may notice a few glaring holes. Did you suddenly realize you don’t own a single lipstick you really love? Or that none of your foundations are a perfect match? Well then, it’s time to go shopping!

EIGHT HOURS OF AMAZING SLEEP   

You look tired. Next to “You have a huge pimple,” there is no other phrase in the English language that makes you want to run for cover more. Exhaustion, like parking tickets, is an unfortunate side effect of everyday living. But that doesn’t mean you have to look it. Whether your night consisted of hours of restless tossing and turning, cramming to meet a deadline or some other late-night dalliance, the effect on your complexion is still the same. Hello, puffy! Hit there, sallow! What’s up, dark circles? Trick your public and yourself into thinking you had a seamless eight hours of REM sleep.   

EYE-OPENERS   

Wearing too much eye makeup when you’re tired is like sporting a snug half-shirt the day after Thanksgiving. It only points a big, red arrow directly to the problem area. But not wearing anything around the eyes can be just as jarring. It’s all about subtle little tricks.   

• “Use hints of gold shadow around the eye,” says Duwop’s Cristina Bartolucci. “Apply a tiny bit of intense gold shadow at the inner corners of your eye and then wash it over your lids.”
• “My little trick is to use a flesh-coloured eyeliner on the inside of the id; this opens and blends into the skin tone, killing any pink or redness the inner lid may have,” says Shane Paish, global makeup advisor for Dior.
• An eyelash curler and a couple coats of mascara can do more to wake you up than a double espresso. “Get the curler as close as possible to the lashline without pinching the skin,” says makeup artist Dick Page. “The key is to stop as soon as you feel it bump against the lid.” Page also suggests using several pulsing squeezes down the lash until you get to the tips.

DARK CIRCLES, DARK SCHMIRCLES!   

“Dark circles are every woman’s nemesis,” says Laura Geller, makeup artist and founder of Laura Geller Makeup. Indeed, it’s not just lack of sleep that will cause these extra-special shadows to appear. We can also thank our great-grandmothers (dark circles can be genetic), allergies, eating gobs of sauce – laden sushi (fluid retention is a dark-circle culprit) and aging, which causes the skin around the eyes to thin, allowing veins to show. “If you’re just trying to cover a little darkness, bring your foundation right up under your eyes and then gauge how much concealer you need. If you can still see shadows, it’s time to bring in heavier artillery,” says Geller. Eliminate the enemy with there dark circle-erasing steps. 

1. Locate the problem- Dark circles rarely form all the way underneath the eyes. If you’re sending them a cease and desist, you have to find them first. “Look straight into the mirror and then slowly tilt your chin down and suddenly the circles will pop out – it’s actually kind of scary,” says Duwop’s Cristina Bartolucci. The dark circles in question are those half-moons of blueness beginning right above the tear duct, close to the nose.
2. Conceal- “The pinky finger is nature’s little dark circle-concealing tool,” says Bartolucci. “It fits perfectly in that half-moon area.” Dab a peachy-tones concealer to counteract the blue-green circle, onto the side of your pinky and tap it right into the dark area. “Don’t extend the concealer into the temple area – it will only accentuate any fine lines or wrinkles,” says Sue Devitt. “The only thing you should be using in that area are eye-treatment products or foundation.”

BEAUTY TIP   

To avoid dark circles and under-eye bags, try sleeping with extra pillows. Gravity helps fight the accumulation of fluid under the eyes.

LONG, LUSCIOUS LEGS

We’re going to let you in on a little secret. Supermodels have cellulite. We swear it’s true. Anyone who’s ever sat front row during fashion week will attest to this glorious news. But that doesn’t mean we all don’t dream of owning a pair of long, lean and perfectly smooth stems. Get a leg up with these tricks and tips and we bet you’ll be hot to trot – that is, unless you plan on sashaying down a harshly lit runway in hot pants the size of a postage stamp.

SMOOTH OPERATOR

Orange peel, cottage cheese, whatever culinary pseudonym you’ve decided to bestow on those lovely lumps on your tights, we all know its proper name – cellulite. There is some good news and some bad news when it comes to fighting the c-word. “Tackling cellulite is a multifold process,” says Ann Marie Cilmi, director of development and education at Bliss Spas. “It has to be addressed through diet (eight bags of cookies a day does not a cellulite-free thigh make), via stimulation of circulation (our thin-thighed ancestors were not known to sit in ergonomically correct office chairs for ten hours a day), and exercise (nobody walks twenty-six miles to get fresh water anymore… it may be saving us time but it’s not saving our thighs!).”

Diet is indeed critical to wiping out cellulite. “To encourage healthy, hydrated cells and connective tissue, I recommend foods such as soy or tofu, cauliflower, spinach, oranges and tomatoes. They all have lecithin, which strengthens skin and makes it harder for cellulite to show through,” says Dr. Howard Murad. He also suggests loading up on things like pistachio nuts, walnuts, pomegranates, goji berries, broccoli and green tea. “Feeding the skin is equally as important as applying topical products. When you use topical products, you address approximately 20% of the skin, the epidermis. The remaining 80%, the dermis, requires nourishment from foods and dietary supplements. Foods rich in essential fatty acids, antioxidants, lecithin, glucosamine and amino acids encourage healthy, strong blood vessels and connective tissue,” he says. “Cellulite, for example, is a direct result of poor circulation caused by weakened blood vessels and connective tissue that has deteriorated. By feeding the body the key elements for healthy collagen and elastin production, you can reduce the appearance of cellulite and skin that has lost its firmness.”

BRUSH OUT CELLULITE

To stimulate the movement of toxins through the body so that they don’t pool under the skin and lead to the appearance of cellulite, increase your surface circulation with Bliss’s dry-brushing technique, to be done on a daily basis:

1. With a clean, firm, natural bristle brush, begin brushing at your feet upward toward your heart, using enough pressure to stimulate circulation but not enough to bruise you.
2. Brush in circles around your knees and at the top and inner areas of your thighs.
3. Circle your brush around your abdominal wall, in the direction of your intestines (from the lower right side, move up and across above your belly button, then down the left side).

RUB OUT CELLULITE

Modern technology has brought us many useful things: cell phones, the internet, and high-tech anti-cellulite creams! Here, our favorites.

BEAUTY TIP

Apply body bronzer to your legs before you apply your makeup so it has time to set and dry while you’re doing your face.

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NIGHT OUT

For evening, turn the intensity up a notch. The perfect evening makeup makes you look like yourself, only more gorgeous. Lighting is softer at night, so you want to compensate by doing your makeup a bit stronger and a bit brighter; otherwise you’ll look washed out. One of my favourite evening looks of all time was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s. She would keep her face and her hair very simple and just put on a dramatic stain of red lipstick. Of course, not everyone can carry that off but everyone can follow that same guideline: Pick one feature to play up and keep the makeup on the rest of the face clean and pretty. Make sure you have enough foundation and blush on to five face life. Use your everyday foundation but choose a blush that’s a touch brighter than normal. And then decide if you want to play up your eyes or your mouth. Don’t do both. If you want a stronger eye, do a soft mouth. Or subtle colour on your eyes with a bold mouth.

Personally, I prefer doing more with the eyes and less with the lips. It looks beautiful and it’s not too high maintenance. When your lips are very bright or very dark, the colour will come off every time you take a drink. So instead of running to the bathroom to redo it every ten minutes, I’d rather do my makeup so that it looks great even if my lipstick fades away.

EVENING TIP SHEET

• Always brighten eyes with concealer.
• Adding a bit of shimmer (to eyes or lips) is a fast way to make your nighttime makeup special.
• Make lips look dramatic by choosing a shade that’s slightly richer than what you’d normally wear for the day. If you like berry gloss by day, take it up a notch by trying a slightly deeper burgundy for night.
• Don’t ignore your skin. If your neck and chest are bare, sweep on a light touch of bronzing powder, working downward from your chin.
• Make cheeks glow by using a cream blush topped with just a pop of powder blush to the apples of the cheeks. Or try a shimmery blush to add sparkle to cheeks.
• Finish with two coats of very black mascara.
• Switch from your light daytime scent to a warm, sexy fragrance.

EYEBROW SHAPING

Perfectly groomed eyebrows, just like manicured nails, can make a huge difference in presenting yourself as sophisticated, distinguished and on top of your beauty game. A great of eyebrows can even have trans-formative powers. “People will think you look beautiful without knowing exactly why,” says celebrity brow shaper Anastasia Soare. On the flip side, neglected brows can do major damage to your look. “Brows are an essential part of every trend,” says Too Faced creator Jerrod Blandino. “When your brows are left ungroomed, it can make your whole appearance look passe.” And in beauty, as in fashion, being passe is a serious crime.

GET THE LOOK

Discover your golden arches with these brow-shaping steps:

1. First, you’ll need a brow stencil. Brow stencils are amazing tools for getting brows to look as if they were shaped by a pro. (Kits from many brands – such as Sephora, Anastasia, Too Faced and Tarte – include stencils.) To find the stencil that’s right for you, Soare suggests taking a pencil and holding it directly up from the center of one of your nostrils. The point where it hits the eyebrow is where the stencil should start. Then hold the pencil diagonally starting at the outside corner of your nose; the point where it hits your brow is where the stencil should end. Repeat with the other nostril.
2. Fill in the stencil with a white or pink shadow so it stands out against your natural brow colour. Remove the stencil and pluck the area where you don’t see eyeshadow. All brows should have somewhat of an arch. When the bone area about two-thirds into the underneath the brow is exposed, it lifts and brightens the entire eye area by allowing light to come in. This effect can shave five years off the appearance.
3. Fill in brow hairs with a pencil or powder. Choose a colour a shade lighter for darker brows and a shade darker for lighter brows but be careful not to go too dark as the oils in your skin collect in your brows and darken the colour, making them look artificial.

BROW KNOW-HOW

What’s the difference between…

BROW WAX

Usually clear, brow was can be used over the natural brow or over pencil or shadow to hold brow hairs in place. Brow was gives a very natural look. Always use an angled brow brush to apply.

BROW GEL

Brow gel can be coloured or clear. Brow gel is applied with a spooly brush, just like mascara. Brow gel gives definition to brow hairs by helping them stand up and holding them in place.

BROW PENCIL

Brow pencils give precise definition to eyebrows. Pencils are great for achieving subtle, hairlike strokes. Always make sure to sharpen them before use.

BROW POWDER

Powder has more pigmentation than pencils, so when you want a more dramatic look, powder is the way to go. Use it wet for maximum intensity. You can mix and match different shades to create the best colour for you. An angled brow brush is a must when using powder.

BEAUTY TIP

Eyebrows are sisters, not twins – they do not have to be identical. Everyone has one brow that’s higher, so don’t become obsessed with making them look exactly alike.