Gill South calls on the help of a makeup artist for top tips on how to look her best.
I love it when a journalist writes in celebrity profiles, "She greets me at the door without a scrap of makeup, she's even prettier in the flesh." Yeah right, agrees my makeup artist for the morning, Renee Rigden, that's probably a male journalist.
Renee, a sales manager at Shiseido and a former makeup artist, has come to my house to work wonders with me. There are days when I can't tell if I've put on makeup or not, which for a non-celebrity like me can't be a good thing. I've chosen Renee because she regularly helps out at the charity Look Good Feel Better, which helps women going through cancer treatment restore themselves with free makeover workshops. Renee has many tricks up her sleeve.
One of the best things she can do for someone like me, she says, is to accentuate my eyebrows, fill in the brows' shape. She does this with an eye pencil. I like this, no nasty eyebrow plucking. With deep set eyes, I shouldn't use dark eyeshadow, it will make my eyes look duller, she says. Apparently, most European women have deep set eyes.
Renee suggests I use a more enriched moisturiser for my daily routine in winter, when my skin is dryer. I am hoping she is going to give me the secret of how to make my lipstick stay on, but she just laughs and says she has the same problem. Blotting with a tissue a couple of times is the best she can offer. She reckons if you talk a lot, eat and drink, you are likely to have trouble keeping lipstick on. Yep, that's me. Lip liner is something I should think about, she tells me. And don't be one of those women who wears the same lipstick colour for years, she says.
