11 Makeup Commandments Charlotte Tilbury Swears By

If you apply foundation with a brush, "it will look like a makeup artist has already been there and created an airbrush flawless look," Charlotte gushed. She advises putting two to four pumps (if you have more pigmentation issues) of product onto the back of your hand, dipping the brush in, and then gliding it onto your skin. "Start from the center of your face and kind of sweep it between the eyes and outwards, blending. And literally go backwards and forwards in those motions, buffing it into the skin. It'll make your skin look totally perfect."

"People exfoliate and wash their faces all the time, so I like to make sure the foundation looks a bit darker," Charlotte explained. "I always match the neck to the face, and it blends seamlessly. I start with one stripe, and it's perfect."

Make sure you know where your brows should start and end, as well as where the arch should go, before you fill them in. Map it out using Charlotte's easy hack. "Lean an eyebrow brush next to your nose," she instructed. "Take it straight to the tip of your eyebrow and make a mark. This is where the eyebrow should begin. Hold it diagonally across the eyeball, and make another dot for your arch. Make your third dot a horizontal line with where your eye ends. Fill them in to create the perfect arch ending."

According to Charlotte, applying a serum before concealer is an old-school makeup artist trick. She recommends using her Mini Miracle Eye Wand, a double-ended tool that contains both formulas. Here's how Charlotte applies it: first (before foundation) pat the serum in, and wait a couple of seconds for it to dry. "The serum kind of stretches the skin and depuffs the area," she noted. "Don't rub! That under-eye area the skin is obviously much thinner than everywhere else." Then, add the light reflector color on top. "It really smooths it out and gives it that light-reflecting finish," Charlotte added.

"It's so complicated!" Charlotte exclaimed. "When I look at those kits I just want to lay down — like how is any woman supposed to understand this? You really just need two shadows: shade and light." According to Charlotte, the easiest way to contour is to take your darker shade and apply it with a contour brush. "Suck in your cheeks and go where the natural shade hits," she explained. "Go taut on your jawbone to get more definition, and go onto your temples. It will give you that facial architecture. Jennifer Lopez puts a little highlight and contour onto the cheekbones and underneath the jaw every day."

As for highlighter, Charlotte recommends making a C-shape from your brow bone to the tops of your cheeks to get "that candlelit skin." Dabbing highlighter on the inner corners of your eyes is a "great Hollywood trick" to open them up. If you drag your brush around the nose in a U shape, it shortens it.

"The thing is you always want blush to be a bit high up, not low where it looks like your cheeks have dragged down," Charlotte noted. She suggests the age-old trick of looking in the mirror while smiling to find the apples of the cheeks. Then, try her "swish and pop" application technique. "You get the color onto your brush, swish it on in a circular motion, and pop at the center, then swish back around it," she explained. "And always do your eyes and lips first, then add the blush last. Because if you make the mistake of putting the blush first, you might go overboard."

Charlotte's trick for a full pout the natural way is fairly easy. "Always use a lip liner that matches your lipstick," she said. "Smile because it stretches lips out, and you can see how to get the perfect line." Charlotte's theory is that we all have a double edge where our lips end, so go for the outer one to create the most voluptuous look.

"I always like to use a squarer brush," Charlotte began. That is why she created her Matte Revolution Lipsticks to have square heads. To apply lipstick, she starts from the corner (instead of the center) and goes across (left to right, right to left). For the bottom, she applies it from the corner to the center (from both sides). "I like to get that real precision," she said of her method.

Don't double dip, Charlotte warns of putting too much product on your mascara wand! "If you pump, pump, pump, you're destroying your mascara," she said. "You actually don't need to put that much mascara on, what you need to do is brush through." Her solution: pump into your tube once and apply it.

She advises to comb through your lashes multiple times. For instance, if you want to create a wind shape, keep stroking the outer strands until you get the shape you want. The density of your flutter determines how many coats you should do. Follow her guidelines: "For really thick lashes, three or four times. If you have little white lashes, then do it six or seven times."

To get a doll-like effect, hold the wand vertically and touch it against your bottom lashes, pulling them down.

Charlotte's method for creating the ideal cat eye is to make a dot where you want the flick to end and then connect to the outer corner. "For my eyes, I like to drag them out and balance them," she said. "You want to make your eyes look more wide apart."

"You know how most powders have big, big particles?" Charlotte inquired. "So when you put it on your face you look older and dustier." She prefers powders — like her version — that are micro-finely milled. "If you look at someone on TV, their foundation is on and their skin looks great, but sometimes you can see pores or little lines. If you put on refined powder, it actually smooths out the pores and makes them look more airbrushed."

For combination skin (oily T-zone, dryer sides), she applied it with a brush down the center of the face — middle of the forehead, around the nose, and on the chin. "Those are areas you do not want to look shiny," she explained. "We like shine on the outer areas — the places we put our highlighter."