Beauty sins you should never commit

Reprehensibly dark lip liner

If friends are asking you how you enjoyed your hot cocoa and you didn’t have hot cocoa, you’re probably wearing lip liner that’s too dark. Stop it. You look silly. Go find a lip pencil that matches your lip colour.

Scandalously sleeping with your make-up

Don’t cheat on your face. Because your skin is rich in its own natural oils, gets coated with a daily blend of environmental debris and suffocates under make-up, you’ve got to wash your face every night or your pores will suffer.

Shamefully trying to hide your skin colour

Sorry, but you won’t look like you have a honeyed and sultry tan if your foundation’s too dark — you’ll just look dirty. And you won’t appear porcelain skinned if your foundation is too light — you’ll just look like a ghoul. So gals, please, choose your foundation in good, clear light and blend it onto your skin carefully.

Appallingly squeezing your zits

Dermatologist Karyn Grossman explains that picking pimples not only pushes the bad stuff out of your skin, it also pushes it in deeper, resulting in prolonged redness and increased risk of scarring. She recommends using one-percent hydrocortisone on a pimple three times a day for up to five days to decrease inflammation.

Scandalous dapples

Trying to blend cream make-up over a powdered face is like trying to mix honey into your iced tea. It doesn’t work. Instead, you’ll look as though you dappled sticky bits of glue across your face. If you use cream foundations and concealers, start with those and finish with powder if needed.

Dishonourable lack of consideration for brow colour

The most flattering brow colour is a shade lighter or a shade and a half lighter than the darkest part of your hair. Don’t go more extreme than that.

The immorality of spidery lashes

Eyelashes are a fine and delicate feature, so honour them as such by using mascara only to subtly enhance. If your impulse is to over-apply, you’re going to have to teach yourself to hold back. Spidery, clumped-up, wild-looking lashes are only attractive to other spiders.

Reckless vibrancy

If you fancy vibrant cheeks, keep your lips understated. If, on the other hand, you’re aching for vivacious lips, cool it with the blush. It’s the difference between appearing sophisticated and clownish.

Shameful public application

There’s only one situation in which applying make-up in public is okay — as performance art. If you don’t have dreams of being on the stage, don’t do it. It’s in bad taste, it’s tacky and you’ll look dumb!

Dreadfully dramatic contouring

Using deep contour shades to give the illusion of a sculpted nose or a sharper cheekbone looks divine on the pages of fashion magazines where choreographed lighting diffuses the gradations of tone. But in real life, you’ve got to blend those contour shades to near invisibility. That or look like a human outline.