Trying to achieve a sun-kissed glow, accessorize a simple black dress or even just carry your daytime look to night?  It’s all about the make-up. Fashion isn’t just about the clothes, but the face as well.  The art of make-up can be a pretty, but messy affair, so Topcoat has enlisted one of New York City’s best make-up artists, Dara Klein, to help sort it all out. 

Tips to Live By:
Less pressure, more impact. If you just lighten up your pressure, hold the brush not so close and tight, you will not only save on the amount of product used but also get a completely different application.

If you like the way your make-up looks before your mascara’s on, you’ve done a good job. Sometimes people want the mascara to do what the foundation and concealer should have done. Perfect and correct your skin and the color won’t have to work as hard.
Clean your make-up brushes. Treat them like your own hair. If you can’t get to shampooing them every couple of weeks, use a cleaning product. Dara recommends Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaner.

Always start with clean prepped skin. Cleansing really starts with fully removing your eye make-up. If you’ve got foundation on, use a cream cleanser to do a pre-wash and then wash again, going back and using your fingers to massage in circular motions making sure that everything is deeply cleansed. Toner balances the skin and helps open it up to receive moisturizer a little better. For moisturizer, if you are using a lotion during the day, you need to be switching to a cream at night, if not a day cream and using lotion in the summertime.

Best and Cheapest Tools of the Trade:
Everybody needs Egyptian Magic. It is $30 for a jar that will last you forever and you can use it on the face, hands, feet, lips. It’s like a balm made from olive oil, bees wax, honey, bee pollen, royal jelly, bee propolis. You can’t get a more natural; it’s like eating the perfect food.
Pony Tail Brush – it is that big black fluffy headed brush every line has that gathers almost at a soft point. You can do eye shadow all over like if you’re going out at night, take your bronzer or your powder blush and pop it in the crease….it’s multi-functional.
Favorite Mascara - Maybeline Lash Stylist –  it gets so much product at root of the lash.