Firstly, as we all know, you have to keep your nose in good order. The skin on your nose will split and crack from the endless blowing unless you take measures. The best method I've found is to use 'balm' tissues, which are impregnated with moisturiser, but if you can't get hold of these, or the damage is done by the time you get them, a dab of calendula cream topped with Vaseline works wonders. Do the inside as well as the outside of your nostrils, and really slather the stuff on at night - it will do a great repair job by morning.

While you have a cold, take your makeup off with a cream cleanser rather than water-based, as this will sting less, and avoid skin toners at all costs, especially those with alcohol in, as they'll feel like acid. Use more moisturiser than usual, as you'll be touching your face more.

When you have a cold, you usually look pretty pallid but blowing your nose will bring your makeup right off so it's pointless to apply it. Instead of using foundation, settle instead for just a bit of concealer around your nose, and keep reapplying as needed throughout the day. Don't bother with powder, especially if you're not sleeping well, as your skin tone is bound to be a bit off and you'll just make yourself look like a corpse - it's better to keep a bit of dew in your skin.

If you're looking deathly, your most crucial cosmetic is blusher. Even if you eschew all else, dab on a bit of blusher, and if you're not already flushed, add a bit to your forehead, temples and chin to 'lock' your face together. This alone will make you look brighter and healthier and means you don't have to wince quite so much when you look in the mirror.

Eye makeup is problematic when you have a cold - especially if you're tearing up and your eyes feel like hot boiled eggs. Your best friend here is sunglasses, if you can get away with it. Sunglasses with very lightly graduated shades can disguise a heap of problems and still be wearable all day long (trust me on this - I wore them for months when I had a corneal infection and got chatted up all the time as a woman of mystery). Also use artificial tears to keep your eyes moist throughout the day, especially if your environment is air-conditioned.

If you do want to wear makeup, save your effort for your brows and keep them carefully shaped to frame your eye but keep the rest to a minimum. The worst culprit is mascara, especially waterproof mascara, as if this has any lash-lengthening or lash-thickening properties, it's liable to flake off and fill your sore, tired eyes with grit. I would leave off the mascara altogether and opt for just curling your lashes instead.

If your eyes can tolerate it, using a white or pale pink kohl eyeliner inside your eye instantly removes the red-eye look, while a bit of light brown eyeliner under your eyes and a dab of cream or mousse eyeshadow on the lid will give you some definition. But avoid anything with mica - even if this isn't normally a problem for you, when your eyes are sensitive, it will again feel like grit. Look for cosmetic brands such as Eyecare, which are hypoallergenic and mica-free.

Lipstick can also be a problem when you have a cold, as constantly wiping your nose tends to bring off your lippy, as does covering your mouth when you cough. Lip liner, used all over the mouth, has more staying power than lipstick. To apply it, moisturise your lips, draw your outline with a liner pencil and then fill in. Choose either a bright colour to give you some life or a nude shade. 'Nude', with regard to your lips, doesn't mean flesh-coloured - it means the same colour as your lips are when you bite them - a shade or two darker than your 'resting' lip colour. Applying this shade makes you look healthier but still natural. Once you've applied your liner, apply a coat of Vaseline or lip salve to keep your lips moist, and keep that topped up during the day.

During a cold, you'll really look better if you wear your absolute best colours - the ones that make you look healthy and pert - up by your face (anyone notice that Hilary Clinton switched to a bright yellow jacket when she was down with a cold on the campaign trail?). Your 'best' colours vary for each woman, but they don't generally include drab, olive, black or white. Instead, opt for girly, feminine colours such as pink, peach, eau-de-nil and soft blue (especially if you have blue eyes), or even red to make yourself look more vibrant.

Finally, if you're not wearing shades, wear a largeish pair of earrings that match your eye colour, and you'll look better in seconds.

Ageing skin has different issues from younger skin - it tends to be dryer, more sensitive, less prone to acne but more prone to rosacea, and of course, it wrinkles, which is why so many women now use anti-ageing products.

Although I believe that the skin is aided most by diet, you can also benefit your skin with a good care regime. So here I'll describe here my daily skincare and skin makeup routine, which takes about 12 minutes all told. It may differ from what you want to do, but if you want to follow it, this routine results in a calm skin, and a finished face that will last all day.

We each have our particular issues with our appearance, and areas we'd like to correct. Mine are:

* I have rosacea, which means my skin flushes easily.

* I have broken veins on my nose, cheeks and chin. They are worst on the sides of my nostrils.

* My skin is also terribly sensitive and increasingly dry, especially in winter. I need to be very careful about what products I use on my face or I get bad reactions.

Cleansing

Since you presumably weren't wearing makeup overnight, in the morning you don't need 'cleanser' as such. I use aqueous cream BP to cream off my face, or wash with emulsifying ointment BP. Both of these products are dirt cheap and come in huge tubs from any UK pharmacist. They also have the advantage of being fragrance- and lanolin free - they're based on white paraffin wax. Emulsifying ointment is used in hospitals for people with skin conditions, and makes a good bath-oil substitute. It's also useful for shaving your legs. Aqueous cream makes a good body cream but takes a while to sink in - it's not as comfortable to wear as something like Dove Silk.

Scrub

Days when my skin feels a little scaly, I wash with home-made almond/honey scrub. This is made from

1 tablespoon liquid honey

1 tablespoon ground almonds

Few drops of lemon juice.

Blend this lot together and use as needed. If you pot it up, it will keep in a jar for ages, as honey is an effective biocide, and it also works well as a body scrub.

Rinsing

After cleansing, I rinse my skin 50-60 times. This seems excessive, it's true, but I've found it has hugely beneficial results, removing every scrap of product from your skin and hydrating it beautifully. Use nicely tepid water that doesn't shock your skin. This rinsing is part of the Sher skincare method, along with drinking large amounts of water, and replaces the 'toning' part of a skincare routine.

Moisturising

After washing, don't dry your face, only pat your skin lightly with a clean towel and then apply your cream to skin that is basically wet rather than damp. The idea is to lock in a layer of moisture under your skin cream - you'll also find you need less moisturiser with this technique.

For my first layer of skin cream. I use Biafine, prescribed by my doctor. Biafine is used to prevent radiation burns during radiotherapy treatment, but is a remarkable and useful cream for other purposes, such as nappy rash and sunburn. It also has the handy property of holding up to 500 per cent of its body weight in water, so a tiny drop goes a very long way. Again, it is fragrance-free, so it's great for people with rosacea or sensitive skin.

Whatever skin cream you use, while it sinks in, clean your teeth, including your lips. Brushing your lips removes any dead skin and gives your lipstick a better base to cling to. Daily brushing in this way results in a smoother lip over time. If you find it makes your lips too red in the morning, just do it at night. Afterwards, apply lip cream and lip salve.

Also apply eye cream if you use it. Currently, I use a thick eye cream by Evian, which doubles as a lip cream. It's the best one I've found so far and definitely helps with wrinkles.

If you have normal skin, at this point, you should go and get dressed, or walk the dog, or check your email. There's no point in applying makeup to freshly moisturised skin, as it won't adhere, so you now have to do something else for at least 10-15 minutes.

However, my skin needs more work than this because it is very dry and also because of the rosacea. So I now apply a second moisturiser. This is currently the anti-ageing cream by L'Oreal called Revitalift, which contains a sunscreen of SPF 15. It's a good cream and I've noticed an improvement in the texture of my skin since using it. Step three depends on the time of year. If it's a sunny day, I apply an SPF 60 sunscreen, but in winter, my skin is really incredibly dry, so I apply Nutric 5% cream by La Roche-Posay. This is a very hydrating but non-greasy moisturiser. And then, after all that, it's time for me to go check my email too....

Demaquillage

In the evening, the process is pretty much the same, except more complicated.

Firstly, remove your eye makeup, with either water- or oil-based remover. I don't wear waterproof eye makeup, so I don't really need oil-based remover, but in any case I find this irritates my eyes, so I use a water-based remover. Pour a reasonable amount of liquid onto a clean cotton pad and hold over the eye for 10-20 seconds to allow it to do its work. This way, you can avoid rubbing your eyes and stretching the skin. Don't forget the roots of your eyelashes - use a cottonbud if necessary.

Then apply an oil-based cleanser over your whole face and remove with dampened cotton wool pads. There are two reasons for using them damp - one, you'll drag at your skin less and two, you'll use less product. Once the pads come clean, which takes 2-3 applications, apply a water-based cleanser and repeat the process. When every single scrap of makeup has been removed, rinse your skin 60 times in warm water, then apply your night-time moisturiser. Generally these contain AHAs to brighten your skin overnight, but lack sunscreen because you don't need it. Once again here, I use Revitalift, but this time the night cream. Then clean your teeth (and lips), and apply lip cream, eye cream and lip salve.

If you have sensitive skin, it's very important to remove every single scrap of makeup, and if you have dry skin, it's crucial to keep it hydrated overnight. So I also apply cold cream (and yes, I confess to sometimes doing this in bed after lights out, so my DH can't see it). If you get up in the night to use the loo, don't miss the opportunity to apply another layer of moisturiser either. Your skin does its main repair work while you're asleep, so give it the tools to work with.

The best products are those with a little sheen rather than being ultra-matt or ultra-shiny, both of which look ageing. Personally, I've also largely switched from away powders towards creams, mousses and pencils, which glide on easily and don't gather in your wrinkles. As you get older, the less you drag your skin around the better because the collagen that once made it bounce back is on its way out.

Assessment

Firstly, you need to look at your face in a good light to assess what you need for the day. Some days concealer and powder will be enough - you don't need foundation every day for daytime.

I don't have good light in my bathroom, so I take a magnifying mirror out to the landing window, which faces north, and make a quick note of hot spots (of which I have many, because I have rosacea), and any papules (white-headed rosacea zits) or pimples that need fixing (I'm lucky enough to still have spots, especially during my period, what joy). I also have other areas which may need dealing with - thread veins on my nose and cheeks, and blue circles under my eyes if I have a bad night.

Preparation

Mat your skin down before applying makeup. When I can get it, I use papier mattifiant from the Body Shop, but I'm told that a sheet of medicated loo paper does the trick just as well. It simply removes any excess moisturiser. Some people like to use a skin primer or anti-oil primer, which sounds a good idea, but I haven't tried them yet.

Under the eyes

If you're looking a bit tired, under the eyes try using a yellow concealer. Yellow cancels out the blue tone of under-eye circles and works far better than a flesh-colour concealer, which simply highlights the area and can give you raccoon eyes if you overdo it. I use a lipstick-type one by Couvrance. This stick type works best if you apply it to the back of your hand first and allow your skin warmth to soften it before dotting it under the eyes and blending in - you need hardly any and at this rate, this one stick will last me about 150 years. If memory serves, Bobbi Brown also makes a yellow concealer.

General concealer

Flesh-coloured concealer is for any red bits, spots, hot spots, thread veins etc that you need to cover, and you should apply it with a brush. Despite all advice, the brush I've found most useful is the small, free one you get in a lipgloss palette. I use Maybelline's Dream Mousse concealer, which is just fantastic. You need so little of this that you really do have to use a tiny little brush - use a fingertip and you could apply it to yourself, your husband, all your friends and still have some left over. For touch-ups during the day, if needed, I use Touche Eclate by Yves St Laurent, which fits into a handbag easily and has its own brush - Dior makes a similar product. Other manufacturers make other types of concealer, including sticks and powders.

You should apply concealer only where it's needed. On an average day, I apply it to the sides of my nostrils and the thread veins on my chin and cheeks if they're flaring a bit. Wherever you use it, blending is crucial, and worth taking time over. On a bad day it feels like I've done half my face, but I still prefer this to using a foundation all over.

Green concealer

If you blush easily, or really have a bad case of all-over redness, which can happen with rosacea if you let your diet slip, use a green concealer (most manufacturers now make them, including Bourjois and Boots No7), then foundation and powder on top. Go easy with it � you're just undercoating, not painting yourself green. If you use this stuff, make sure to use blusher too or otherwise you'll look like a corpse.

Foundation

If you use foundation every day, stop for a moment and consider whether it's just habit. You may be fine with nothing more than concealer and powder.

A foundation is meant to even out your skin tone and make you look healthy, not cover blemishes - for that, you should use concealer. If you have desperately oily skin, or really need a large degree of general coverage, or have bad rosacea, acne scars or other tough blemishes to deal with, think about seeing a dermatologist - they have access to products that you won't find out about otherwise.

Personally, I hate the feeling of makeup on my face, and I also have the bad habit of touching my face all the time, so for a long time I used Dior's Airflash, which is wonderfully light and matt and you hardly know you've got it on. Now I use Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse instead, applying it with a finger and blending thoroughly. I like this product because you can really use very very little, so you don't feel like you've plastered your face.

Blusher

Lots of women don't wear blusher, but it's one of the makeup artist's chief weapons. Applied correctly, it makes you look happy and healthy, and I also couldn't help but notice that in makeup artist Kevin Aucoin's books, EVERY face without exception used blusher, even if the model wasn't wearing mascara, lipstick or eyeshadow.

Like many other makeup products, blushers now come in liquid, gel, cream, mousse and powder forms. Liquids and gels go on under your foundation, and have to be worked with quickly before they set a stain. Powders go on over your powder, and creams and mousses go on over your foundation but under your powder. I feel these are the easiest to work with if you're not a professional - personally I use Maybelline Dream Mousse Blush for its whippy texture. It might seem a bit daft to use blusher when you've already got a red face, but my rosacea has the lovely habit of affecting one cheek only, and in the wrong place, so I cover that up and then put blusher where it 'should' be.

There are trends in blusher application, in case you hadn't noticed. In 'my day' (an expression I hate, and which was the 1980s, by the way) you applied blusher right across from your cheekbones to your hairline in a sort of slash, preferably with highlighter above and contour cream below (and dark eyes AND lips to boot - check out Fran Drescher in Spinal Tap). This approach is now considered outdated and you're meant to apply blush to only the apples of your cheeks.

To find your apple, smile broadly. It's the fat part of your cheek, directly in line with the centre of your eye, so apply your blusher here and blend outwards just a little. Go easy, and keep stepping backwards to assess your progress, as if you were pruning a shrub. What you're aiming for is a healthy glow, not Sally the old rag doll.

Powder

The last step is loose translucent powder. Why loose? Because loose powder gives a much finer finish than pressed powder, and contains fewer waxes and fillers, so it won't make you flare if you have allergies. Currently I use Luminelle from Yves Rocher, which on its own is a bit matt for my taste, so I've added a bit of gold body powder to lighten it a little (an all-over powdered look is very flat and ageing). For daytime touch-ups, pressed powder is easier to carry around - I use Dior for its fine finish.

To apply loose powder you'll need a big fluffy brush, with a head 2-3in across. On days when you need greater coverage, apply your powder with a latex sponge, then blend in well with the fluffy brush. On days when you only want a slight coverage, shake the compact (with the lid on!) to bring up some powder, dip the fluffy brush into it head-on, knock off the excess and apply by mashing the brush head-on into your skin and working the powder well in. Now apply powder blusher, if you prefer this to cream.

The last step with your skin routine is to firmly brush your facial hairs downwards (ie: in the direction of growth), using something like a blusher brush that you keep only for this purpose. This makes any hairs which have perked up lie flat back down again.

That's it, skin done. If you've done it right, it should just look like you're in good condition, not like you've slathered your face in a ton of product.

Preparation

First prepare a cotton bud with water-based eye-makeup remover, ready to mop up any mistakes.

Eyeliner

I start actual makeup application with 'invisible eyeliner', using a technique described in Your Makeover by Morgen Schick. This involves lining your upper inner eyelid with a soft brown pencil, so that none of it shows on your actual eyelid, but the lashline is strengthened, which makes your eyes look bigger. To do this, pull your eyelid gently to the side, look upwards and scrub the liner into the roots of your lashes without getting any on your actual eyelids (it's hard to describe, this, but there's a better description in the book, with a step-by-step).

Then outline the inner lower eyelid with white or pale pink kohl pencil. This is an old Hollywood technique to make your eyes look bigger. White kohl pencils are easy to find at the moment, but periodically they disappear from the shelves, so I stock up. Currently I use a white Eye Care one, or a pale pink one from Yves Rocher. I'm still looking for a beige.

Shadow

Sadly, about 80 per cent of eyeshadows are still powders, but the over-40s are better served by cream sticks, liquids and mousses, all of which glide on very smoothly and show the wrinkles on your eyes less. They're also easy to apply with your fingers. Fingers are very useful in makeup application, because your own body warmth and skin oils make the makeup more malleable.

As with other areas of makeup, it's best to stick to neutrals, especially for daytime. Personally, I have about five basic colours at the moment - all shades of brown, mouse, copper, peach and gold, and all with a degree of gleam rather than glitter. Yves Rocher and Avon both make good cream sticks, while Maybelline's Dream Mousse range contains a brilliant browny eye colour called Plum Temptation, which is great for light coverage in daytime. Stick to shades within a tone or two of your normal skin colour - anything too dark or too bright is ageing.

Apply shadow all over your eyelid, from lashline to eyebrow and blend softly. This alone will do for daytime, but if you want a bolder look, you could try adding a slightly darker shadow right around the eye in a circle, including the tear duct. Stay close to the lashline, and simply wipe off any excess with the cotton bud you've got ready. Using an eyeshadow stick in this way works much better than using a liner pencil, which adds a very strong line of colour. Then blend softly, to avoid looking like a panda.

If you like highligher, under your eyebrow line run a fine line of pale pink highlighter. This looks good on EVERYONE and opens the eye right out. Blend it carefully into your main eyeshadow colour.

Eyebrows

Then apply eyebrow pencil. My eyebrows are almost invisible because I'm blonde, so I can vary the shape quite easily, but whatever shape you choose, doing your brows is crucial to frame your eye. If you're not sure how to pluck, consider having them done professionally, even if only once. With good eyebrows and a dash of mascara, every eye looks better, like a picture in a decent mount, even if you wear no other eye makeup, and this is especially important if your brows are greying or thinning.

Apply pencil in light, feathery strokes and blend the colour with an eyebrow brush, then brush the hairs straight up vertically. Then run the brush along the topmost edge to bring the hairs into line - this gives your eye a very wide-awake appearance. An eyebrow brush, in case you've never seen one, sometimes comes on the end of an eyebrow pencil and looks like the old-fashioned 1960s wands that you got with a cake mascara - it has short, stiff bristles. If you can't find one, though, an old, clean mascara brush will do.

Mascara

Before applying mascara, curl your eyelashes, which again makes your eyes look much bigger and more open. The conventional metal eyelash curler works better if you run it under a hot tap for 5-10 seconds to warm up the rubber, then dry it. Make sure you have the rubber convex side up - the rubber inserts are not reversible and if you use the wrong side, you'll crimp your lashes rather than curling them. Test it on your cheek before pressing it against your eyelid to make sure the temperature's right, so that you don't scald your eyelid. Curl for 5-10 seconds and release, then move two-thirds of the way out towards your eyelash tip and curl again. I curl for 20 seconds on my right eye because it is smaller than my left (due to an eye operation) and needs to be opened out more.

Now apply mascara. The new dual mascaras with conditioner work very well to smooth the lashes. If you're blonde, brown mascara generally looks better than black, except for night-time or if you're going for a very pale eye look, when you need a black lash to anchor the eye. Personally, I use mascara on top lashes and on the outer corner of my bottom lashes only, not the whole eye. Apply the mascara brush to the very base of the lashes, then wiggle the brush from side to side up through the lashes, to get a good coating. If you're blonde, then turn the brush and use it vertically, which again takes mascara right to the base of the lash.

That's your eyes done, now for the lips.

This isn't a bad rule, actually. For daytime and less formal looks, a more natural pink or brownish mouth looks better than red, but dark clothing needs a brighter lip for balance. Whether you prefer a paler or a stronger mouth is up to you, but it helps to practise with several 'standard lips' that you can choose from without thinking, according to the season and what you're wearing. Try this procedure with regard to application:

Highlighter

If you want your mouth to look a bit poutier, outline your whole mouth with concealer/highlighter and blend it in. Something like Touche Eclat works very well. You can only pull this trick off, however, if you have little or no facial hair, as otherwise you give yourself a moustache. Do it properly, though, and your mouth will look a tad bigger, and it's a sure-fire way to prevent lipstick bleed.

Lipliner

Now outline your lips with lip pencil, following the contours of your actual lipline, NOT the colour line of the lips (which recedes as you get older). You can check your natural lipline by looking at yourself in three-quarter view in a mirror (again, this is a tip from Morgan Shick's Your Makeover). Then fill in your lips with the lipliner, like colouring in a drawing.

Lipliners come in different hardnesses and which you choose is a matter of preference, but don't have the point of the pencil too sharp - blunt it off for a soft, natural outline. I favour Yves Rocher, Maybelline and La Roche-Posay.

Using lipliner rather than lipstick gives a dense colour which won't budge or bleed into the cracks round your lips, but it's rather flat by itself, so it needs a top layer. So blot with a single layer of tissue, powder lightly if you wish (this is belt and braces to prevent lipstick bleed), then apply lipstick, if using, and/or gloss.

Lipstick

If you've used lipliner to fill in your lips, you may prefer not to use lipstick at all but move straight on to the final layer, gloss.

Lipsticks vary in colour and texture, but the over-40s are best-served by creamy lipsticks in gentle shades, avoiding mica, frosted looks and really zinging bright oranges and scarlets. Brownish reds often work better than scarlet.

Apply lipstick with a lip brush and work well into the creases in your lips, and take the colour right up to your lipline. For more staying power, blot and apply a second coat, but if you favour lipstick that lasts all day, try out one of the two-stage lippies such as Lipfinity by Max Factor. Personally I felt too made-up wearing this, and I hated the varnished feeling it gave my lips. My favourite lipsticks are by Revlon, but I can't get them here in France, so I wear Chanel or Gemey (French Maybelline).

Lip gloss

Every woman looks good in lip gloss. Not the red vinyl porn-star type, of course, but the types which are not too shiny and which have quite a lot of pigment. These highly pigmented glosses tend to come in palettes rather than tubes, and often have a handy little brush with them - sometimes it's worth buying a complete makeup palette with eyeshadow, blusher and the rest, simply for the lip glosses. Apply this kind of gloss like a lipstick, taking them up to the lipline if you wish. If you have three main colours - red, pink and caramel - it's also a good opportunity to tweak your lip colours a little. I often apply pink over bronze, or caramel over pink for a subtlety of tone.

High-pigment glosses aren't always available, so if you can't find one and have to use the really sticky kind in a tube, you need a different method of application. Use just a tiny dot, press your lips together, then spread it outwards with a brush, stopping well short of the lipline, as otherwise it runs and gets messy. If it still appear too shiny, pat it with a finger until it tones down (some of it will come off in the process, along with your lippy).

With lips done, you're ready to leave the house without scaring the neighbourhood.