Concealer is a girl's best friend

Concealers have also come a long way from the hideous, sticky products of the 1970s and 80s, so now's the time to try again if you have bad memories of your teenage years!

(I should note at this point that all the advice below is for white skins. Black skins need specialised products, such as the Black Opal range.)

Where to put it

Some of the things the average 40-year-old you might want to disguise with concealer include:

* Under-eye circles.

* Blueish discoloration at the inside corners of the eyes.

* Veiny eyelids.

* Red thread veins, particularly at the sides of the nose or on the cheeks.

* Facial redness.

* Spots or reddish scars.

* Sunspots and age spots.

* Vertical lines.

Product types

Concealers come in the form of sticks, pencils, creams, liquids, powders and even mousse, and anyone who isn't a die-hard beauty buyer might feel understandably confused about what they do and how to apply them. The most common mistake is buying too pale a shade - a concealer is not necessarily a highlighter, though some products do claim to kill two birds with one stone - and, for instance, if you apply too pale a concealer to spots you will turn them into visual warts instead - hardly a better solution. They also come in a bewildering array of colours, each of which does a different job. As a hint, flesh-toned concealers are for general coverage and can be used in all the applications listed below if the problem is only a mild one, while coloured concealers are for colour-correction, to correct specific flaws. Here's how they work:

Colours

Flesh - the best all-purpose concealer for evening-out skintones. If you want to manage with only one concealer, this is the one to choose.

Yellow - the best colour for covering blue discolouration, particularly under the eyes. Also works well on mild redness and on age/sunspots. Even if you can't be bothered with other makeup, a dab of yellow under the eyes will make you look like you've had a good night's sleep.

Green - the best colour for covering red discolouration, including thread veins and general flushing.

Lavender - the best colour for counteracting the yellows of sallow skin (also works under the eye area for olive skins, which tend to be yellow under the eye rather than blue).

Pale pink - the best colour for lightening deep vertical lines (and can also be used as a general eyeliner and brow highlighter).

Blue - relatively new to the market, blue concealer can be used to minimise an orangey appearance if you've overdone the fake tanner.

Application

There are several different ways to apply concealer - even using the same product. If you only need light coverage and your concealer is liquid, consider blending it with your moisturiser or foundation. If your concealer is in pencil form, or comes with a built-in brush, then you can use it as it is and then blend it in with either a fingertip or a concealer brush. If it's in any other form, such as lipstick-type, liquid or in a pot, a good method is to place a small amount of it on the back of your hand and leave it for a few seconds to warm up. Then apply it to the areas needed with either the tip of your little finger or a concealer brush.

It's worthwhile learning to use brushes when you do your makeup, as they enable extremely fine application - particularly important if you're applying concealer over dramatically different areas of colour, such as thread veins. However, if you're not confident with brushes, your fingertips are a good substitute. The warmth of your fingers also enables you to blend very well when you're applying product over a wider area.

Under the eyes

The main areas around the eyes that benefit from concealer are the inner corners at the top of the nose, which tends to become dark, under the eye and the eyelids themselves.

* At the inner corners, the most useful concealer is a pale pink pencil - simply draw it on and blend it in. Besides covering the blue, it also makes your eyes look wider apart. I use a pink kohl pencil by Yves Rocher, which can also be used to outline the inner rim of the eye, and as a highlighter under the brow line (I'm a big believer in multi-purpose products, especially as for hygiene reasons you should replace products quite often).

* Under the eyes, if you have olive skin and tend to look a little yellow here rather than blue, you need a lavender concealer (also see 'Sallow skin' below). For paler skins, however, which tend to have blue circles, the best concealer is yellow, which counteracts blue discolouration. Whatever you use, the product should be relatively dry and thick - I use a yellow lipstick type by Couvrance, applying it to the back of the hand, then dotting it under the eye. Start at the tearduct end and finish at about the middle of the iris of your eye - don't carry concealer right around your eye or you'll end up looking like a raccoon. And blend extremely carefully, particularly at the lower edge where the discolouration ends - if you take the concealer over this line onto your cheek, you'll cancel out the colour difference and render the whole thing pointless. You need very very little concealer under your eyes to do an effective job, so make sure to apply it in a bright light, and watch out if you're long-sighted and wear glasses that magnify your eyes. If you also suffer from eye bags as well as dark circles, treat these first, and check out the My Dark Circles Blog.

* For the eyelids I've always just used my normal flesh-toned concealer, but the other day I found this product, Lemon Aid, from Benefit Cosmetics. Described by Benefit as "Not a concealer, but a soft yellow correcting cream that helps redness and discoloration on eyelids disappear..." it seems to be based on sound principles in that the slightly yellow tone is probably more flattering on the eyelids than a normal flesh-toned concealer, which can tend to be too pink. Think I'll give this a try for those days when I don't want to wear 'eyeshadow' as such.

Vertical lines

Anyone who's ever done or worn stage make-up knows that if you want to convey age, you draw dark lines on the face - frown lines between the eyes, around the eyes where laugh lines appear, from the nose to the mouth (naso-labial lines) and from the corners of the mouth to the chin (the charmingly-monikered 'puppet mouth').

While horizontal wrinkles add character to a face and, in my opinion, are worth keeping, vertical lines drag a face down and can make you look tired, ill or older than your years. These are the lines that can benefit from being 'filled in' with concealer. Here, your concealer needs to be paler than your normal skintone, and Benefit have once more come to the rescue with their It Stick, which is a beigey-pink colour. At the moment I just use my Yves Rocher pink kohl and it works pretty well, but the It Stick does look more blendable, so again I might give this a try. Just draw down your lines and blend in well - you might be surprised at what a difference it makes.

Red discolouration

Under this heading come all those nasty little bugbears such as thread veins, rosacea-flushing, spots and so on. Most small areas such as spots can be perfectly well covered with a normal concealer, applied using a very fine brush (I favour Maybelline's mousse concealer), but if you have large areas of redness on the cheeks, chin or forehead, and especially if you know you might be in a hot atmosphere or are prone to hot flashes, green concealer can be very helpful.

Green powders used to be easy to come by and I found them very handy, but they seem to have almost disappeared from the market these days. What are still available are liquids and sticks by manufacturers such as No7 and Bourjois. You apply these UNDER your foundation and I've found two methods that work well. One is to blend a little liquid green concealer, such as No 7 Colour Calming Makeup Base into my normal moisturiser and then make up as normal, and the other is to use a stick concealer (which is much thicker and has more pigment), very lightly in selected areas, warming it first on the back of my hand.

Applying foundation on top of green concealer without disturbing it is not easy and the best method I've found is to switch from my usual mousse to a powder-based foundation, dabbing it on gently with a clean latex sponge, then setting with loose powder.

Sallow skin

Sallow skin can benefit from a brightening lavender concealer. Here, the best product is probably a powder, which is easy to manipulate, such as the lavender shade from Everyday Minerals.

Age spots

These are best covered with a yellow concealer - see section on Eyes, above.

Fake tanner

The only product I know of at present to counteract this, if you've overdone it and now look like an orange, is blue powder concealer from Everyday Minerals.

Camouflage

If you have a medical condition such as vitiligo or lupus, have areas affected by severe rosacea, varicose veins, birthmarks etc, or if you want to cover a tattoo, you'll need a specialist product. Dermablend offers a wide range of camouflage products for both face and body, and has a very wide range of skin colours, but supplies to the US only. In the UK, the Dermacolour range of camouflage makeup is available from Backstage Shop.