Celebwatch: Lily Allen

Yes, so I know she's just this years bratty Kelly Osborne-alike, but I do really like her makeup. Probably because I do my eyes like that as well. Her trademark look is stripes of acid brights and thick black liner, which owes more than a bit of a nod to Kylie if you ask me. So, how does one go about achieving Lilly's bright stripes? (Apparently the gal herself doesn't deign to put on her own slap, she has a makeup artist for that). You can achieve this look really easily with either coloured liners or eye shadow.

If you're going down the coloured liner route, Mac have some really fantastic liquid ones at the moment. They're called Mac Liquidlast Liners, and it's not a boast. This liquid stuff lasts - it just does not come back off easily - it's like the cockroach of the makeup world, you can't get rid of it. But that's a trifling matter as it looks so nice when it's on. It comes in a range of colours, which are slightly metallicised. I have a green and an electric blue, and both look great, plus they go on really easily. They cost about €21 a pop. Mac also do a load of other liner ranges such as their Powerpoint Eye Pencil range, but for definition and sharp lines, I think the Liquidlast range takes the prize.

Surprisingly, it's not difficult to apply a sharp sweep of colour to your lids with shadow. I think the best shadow for this is one with an extremely high pigment content, so that means cheapo brands probably won't work for this look - try Mac, Stila, Nars and Pout for lovely shadow shades with a large amount of pigment. Ruby and Millie do some great colours too, but I've noticed their shadows shatter easily so a lot of wastage tends to occur.

Prime your lids with something like Benefit's Lemon aid, and then, with a clean makeup applicator, load up the colour. Apply the shadow in a line directly above the lashes, from the outside of your eye inwards. Get to about half way, stop, hold the eye slightly taught, and apply from the inner eye out to meet your previous line. Practice a bit and you'll get it perfectly.

As if all that wasn't enough, you can also make your own liquid liners from your existing shadow shades. Get yourself a bottle of Benefit's SheLaq, which is a handy little bottle of an amazing fixitive stuff which you can use to paint over makeup to fix it, or use the accompanying brushes it comes with to mix up your own shades, which you can then paint on.

Enjoy!