Beauty and grooming tips with Caroline Donnelly

Apr 26 2008 by The Journal

YOUR exclusive beauty and grooming tips from MAC cosmetics’ senior make-up artist, Sunderland-born Caroline Donnelly.

IT’S the morning after the Bafta awards ceremony. MAC were the official make up sponsors so we’ve had a few busy days getting guests, presenters and nominees red carpet ready.

My make up artist friend James had Claudia Winkleman booked in with him and before she arrived I told him he'd have a great time working with her. I'd worked with her a couple of weeks previously.

James loved her. She asked if I could do her mother’s make up. Her mam – Eve Pollard – was just as friendly and easy to talk to as she was and I really enjoyed meeting her.

One of the other people I really enjoyed meeting was Joanna Lumley. She came in and chatted while having a quick touch up and really made us laugh! She is absolutely stunning and seemed like a really nice woman too.

Today is the calm before the storm for me. Tomorrow I’m working on an advertisement from 7am until midnight, Wednesday I'm doing a photo shoot with Lisa Snowden 8am until around 6pm and then Thursday I'm doing another long photo shoot for a magazine.

Q I've looked at the MAC foundations on line but I'm not sure how to choose the right shade. I see that they come in NC shades, and NW shades. How do I know which I am?

A. The MAC foundations as you state are categorised into two colour groups. NC – neutral cool, NW – neutral warm.

Once your skin tone is determined this makes it really easy to find your exact shade. The foundation should match the tone of your skin as closely as possible in order to do this. Look at your skin without any make up on. Try to look at your skin in natural day light.

Take into account not only the colour on your face, but your chest and arms. The reason I say this is that the colour of your face can often be a different colour to that of the rest of your body. I want it to match the rest of the body so that the overall skin tone matches with no colour difference.

So, take a good look at your skins undertones. The undertones are the colours you need to be looking closely at, for example, you may have quite a lot of red at the surface of your skin, but the undertone may be yellow.

For Asian or Mediterranean people, it is slightly easier as the skin tone will normally be yellow toned, though it is still best to check. For all other people it varies whether the skin may be black, white, mixed or other.

One common mistake is to assume skin colouring. People with very light skin often think that because they are so pale, that their skin must be pinky, though this is absolutely not the case. Very pale skin is just as likely to have yellowy undertones as pink undertones. Often on the inside of your forearm, you can see what you undertone is.

If you seem to have more yellowy undertones, go for a MAC NC or C foundation, if you find pinky (lighter skin tones) or reddish (darker skin tones) go for a MAC NW or N shade.

The easiest way to obtain your perfect colour match is to go into a MAC store or visit a MAC counter if possible and ask a make up artist there for help. They will sort your colour out in no time.

If you would like to ask Caroline a question email hannah.davies@ncjmedia.co.uk