Barry M: The Look - Be Beautiful

Clean Hair

Avoid dirt-cheap shampoo. It's not that different from washing-up liquid. It will clean your hair but leave it feeling like straw. Try using a mid-priced product from a famous-name hairdresser. These contain plenty of high-tech ingredients and do a brilliant job. The really expensive ones have fabulously complex formulae designed to help fragile, over-processed chemically treated hair.

To Wipe Or To Wash

Try not to just use face wipes unless you have no alternative. Yes they will do a good job of removing make-up, mascara, eyeliner and general dirt. But if the cleansing fluid they are soaked in is strong enough to get all that off your face, it's not something that should be left ON your face. If you do use them, splash your face with water afterwards, or wipe it with a damp cloth.

Exfoliate Spots Away

When you have a whitehead spot exfoliate your skin regularly to try to unblock the pores, and avoid using any sticky or heavy creams. Don't try to extract whiteheads; they don't behave the same way as blackheads, and if you poke at them you will push any infection around them deeper into the skin.

Dusty Eyes

If you are applying dark or sparkly eyeshadow, hold a tissue just below your eye. Then any stray bits of shadow will fall onto the tissue, rather than sticking on your cheek.

Perfect Mascara

Before mascara dries, try holding a finger crossways near each eye and blinking both sets of lashes against it to take away any excess. You can also make your mascara look different by using coloured mascaras on the very tips of your lashes, on top of your normal mascara.

Tricky Lips

Some tricks make-up artists use with lips is run a white eye pencil along the middle bit of the top lip, just outside the lip line. (If it looks odd, then smudge the edges a bit.) What this does is catch the light, and make your lips look bigger. You can also put a dab of gloss in the centre of the lower lip. This catches the light and makes the lip look fuller and fatter than it is.

Tip Top Tan

Unless you want to turn really tanned overnight, you might do best with one of the many gradual-tan moisturisers which give you just a bit of colour so you can slap them on without worrying too much about whether you missed a patch.

Yellow Nails

Nails go yellow because they have been stained by having strong-coloured nail varnish on them for too long. That's why you're supposed to wear a base coat - it's not just because they're trying to sell you another product.

Text © 2009 Alice Hart-Davis and Molly Hindhaugh. Extract from BE BEAUTIFUL: EVERY GIRL'S GUIDE TO HAIR, SKIN AND MAKE-UP by Alice Hart-Davis & Molly Hindhaugh
Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJ. www.walker.co.uk