Use These Tips to Update Your Makeup Routine

Start with a healthy face. Clean your face at least once a day. Treat any acne. Drink lots of water. Working on a clean and healthy face is much easier than trying to cover up a bunch of blemishes.

Wear moisturizer. Make sure the moisturizer has SPF (which helps keep your face looking great and not sun damaged), and get something that's right for your skin - for oily skin, for dry skin, so forth. Moisturizer helps the rest of the makeup go on more smoothly and stay on longer. It also helps protect your face from the oil of the foundation.

Match foundation to your neck. Most women match foundation to their hand or even their face, but for a seamless look, match it to your neck. Then, when you apply it, you won't get that clown-face look.

Apply foundation lightly. Don't glob it on. Look at your face in a couple of different mirrors and light conditions to catch any build-up, especially around the nose and eyebrows. The point of foundation is not to completely cover up your face but just to even our your skin and make it look smoother. Make sure to blend foundation well into your neck so there's not a clear start/stop line.

Wear blush. Many women forego blush because they don't know what to do with it. Basically the point of blush is to look like a real person, not a china doll. Real people have different shades of skin at different points on their face. Wearing foundation and blush helps you control where the color goes. Apply blush where the sun would normally hit: the apples of your cheeks, the tip of your chin, a little bit in the center of your forehead.

Pluck your eyebrows. This should actually be done as soon as you get out of the shower or wash your face so your skin is supple. Give yourself a few minutes after you do it to allow the redness to go down and the pores to close back up before you apply makeup. You want to shape them into a nice arch. Thin is not necessary; many models wear pretty thick eyebrows these days. Go for a nice shape, with an arch over the colored part of your eye. To avoid a major time investment every time you pluck, check your brows daily and pluck any stray hairs that are growing back.

Choose a good color of eye shadow. Visit a makeup counter for advice on which hue to choose for your particular color eyes and complexion. The important thing to remember is to find two or three shades of that color to work with. Apply the darkest of the three shades right at the bottom of your lid, below the crease. If there's a middle shade, apply that above and around the dark shade. Use the light shade, which should be very close to white, above the lid and even in the corner of the eye to reflect light and lighten your face.

Apply mascara. Anyone can wear it. The key is to apply two thin layers of it, rather than one heavy dose. Swipe your lashes once and let the mascara dry for a few minutes. Go back over your lashes a second time, "de-clumping" and filling in where you missed the first time.

Do your lips in layers. First, apply chap stick or lip balm as a base to keep your lips healthy and to keep the color on longer. Over that, apply a very lightweight, glossy color; dark, thick lipsticks are just not in right now.

At the end of the day, remove your makeup. Sleeping in it clogs your pores, not to mention the havoc it wreaks on your pillowcases. Makeup remover can come in tubes, bottles, sticks and wipes. Choose your type, but get the makeup off.