For years I’ve had the pleasure of being one of Joan’s make-up artists for television, movies, speaking engagements and high-toned galas. She asked me to share some of my tips-Enjoy!

Natural Foundation - To give your face a more natural coverage try mixing (in your hand) your favorite face cream together with your favorite liquid foundation and then apply it to your face and neck. You can add more or less cream to the liquid foundation depending on how much coverage you desire for that day. It sure beats purchasing several different products and bulking up your bag.

Smokey Eyes - The key to perfect smokey eyes is proper blending. You must make sure that the shadows you use are blended together flawlessly. If you blend to perfection there will always be a certain "subtle" quality attached to your smokey look and then no matter how intense you want to go with the color you will not have gone "too far".

Contouring - The whole premise of contouring is to add a darker color to an area in order to decrease or recede that area which might be too round or wide creating a more chiseled sculpted illusion. Then highlight the remaining surrounding areas with a lighter color to pull focus away from the contour. When contouring you need to choose a foundation or powder that is one to two shades darker than your foundation color.

Some places that usually need contouring are:

1. Under your cheekbones
2. Jawline
3. The bottom of your chin
4. Neck
5. Along each side of your nose
6. The crease of your eyes
7. Temples

Remember that each area you contour must be very well blended so that a dark contouring stripe does not occur. Dusting a dual finish powder over the contoured areas softens the edges and gives it a more natural look!

Dry Lips - Use a good old fashioned hot wet wash cloth to exfoliate your lips if they are dry. The rubbing motion will also help to plump up your lips and make them fuller. Then add a thick lip conditioner to nourish the area.

Brows - Lets face it, eyebrow plucking can hurt and some of us are more sensitive to the pluck than others. For those gentle souls try using a little Ambesol on the intended area before you groom. It will numb your skin and make the whole experience a heck of a lot less painful.

Pimples - To reduce the volume of a pimple in a pinch, freeze it by holding an ice cube on it for 10 minutes. Then, before applying your makeup, saturate a cotton ball with Visine Eye Drops and press it to the pimple for another minute or so. This will minimize the redness.

Smoking - Smoking creates so many unnecessary wrinkles and prematurely ages skin among other things, SO if you want great skin for many years to come don't smoke!

Alcohol - Alcohol dehydrates your skin and stresses out your liver making your face look dry, tired & worn out. Years of excessive drinking speeds up the aging process, so for longer lasting beautiful young clear skin, keep those drinks to an occasional one or two and only drink them now and then!

Aspartame - Aspartame is a poisonous sweetener! It's totally unhealthy and makes people break out, SO for less pimply skin don't drink so many diet sodas or ingest so much aspartame!!!

Aloe - has amazing healing properties, helps to rebuild your cells and is an excellent drink to add to your daily diet. I for one drink liquid Aloe with juice and water almost every morning and it has always kept my skin looking clear and fresh. Old age can be put off a lot longer if you replace your daily wine, beer or soda for instance with a daily routine of liquid Aloe mixed with water or juice, so consider trying it and see how great your skin will look, not to mention how great you will feel!

Never go to sleep with makeup on - Sleeping with makeup on really cracks and dries out your poor skin. It also makes you breakout and stops your eyelashes from rejuvenating over night which thins them down over time, so just make it a habit to spend 3 minutes before bed (even if you are exhausted) taking off your eye makeup and washing your face! Your skin will thank you for it in the morning!!!

Source: Nicole Bryl, Make-Up New York