Makeup, how I love thee.

There's no denying that cosmetics transform us but sometimes, that goes too far and you end up looking like a different person. While that can be fun, the real beauty of makeup is how it can emphasise and highlight your best features. Mario Dedivanovic, who often works with Kim K, says that brows are paring back next year with an emphasis on full and natural shapes, rather than the boxy, harsh lines we've become accustomed to. Following on from this, I recently met with MAC Senior Makeup Artist Lesley Keane, to have a chat (and get a sneak peek at the new MAC counter in Arnotts). As this beauty pro has worked on numerous catwalk shows all over the world and countless magazine shoots, I was super keen to find out her take on the number one makeup mistake people tend to make. Her answer was straight up, simple and so so true - "overemphasising every feature on the face".

A video posted by Lesley Keane (@lesleykeanemac) on Nov 23, 2016 at 3:12am PST

Lesley commends the fact that Instagram has become such a great source of beauty knowledge, thanks to snappy tutorials and hacks but the issue here is, sometimes we become too focused on getting one element perfect and forget about the overall look.

"Instagram is such an incredible tool to get our message out as makeup artists and it's created a whole new generation of new make up stars but I find people are so obsessed with honing in on the technique of every single feature - like a brow, a socket line, a liner without really standing back and looking back at the whole face as a package and thinking 'does this makeup actually suit me?'"

Lesley's top tip is to remove certain elements of makeup to allow your features to shine through.

"You could do a brow and a lip and pare everything else back, you could do lashes and a lip, then pare your brows back. If you're doing a smoky eye, lighten the brows slightly and intensify the liner on the inside of your eye so it looks balanced. To me, that is beautiful because you're allowing yourself to shine through".

A video posted by Lesley Keane (@lesleykeanemac) on Nov 14, 2016 at 7:31am PST

Main image via Instagram: MAC Cosmetics