In beauty writing, it’s easy to get a bit, well, obvious with your expressions. There are only so many ways to swing a cat when talking about blush, for instance. Or is it skin a cat? I’m really bad at getting things like metaphors and analogies right. And when I get extra-lazy I can fall into what one editor used to call ‘kliché korner’ (our work would often come back to us with menacing-looking KKs scrawled in red all over it). And one beauty expression so common that it’s reached cliché-status has to be: “Smile before applying blush”. We beauty writers trot this one out until the cows come home (I just couldn’t resist). And sometimes you don’t even think about what you’re advising, you just blindly repeat something a makeup artist has said, and before you know it, women all around the country are smiling before applying blush.

Well, you can stop smiling, ladies. Seems I was wrong.

I met makeup artist extraordinaire Mary Greenwell, who’s out here on Olay Definity duties (she’s one of the spokespeople). I was starstruck to say the very least – this woman’s work has graced every major mag and famous face you can possibly name. What I love most about Mary is that she’s so hands on. As you interview her, she explains her tips by demonstrating them on you and before you know it, your half hour is up and you’ve got a whole new face. As Mary took her Chanel-blush-dipped brush (she’s all for splurging on foundations, blushes and bronzers, but loves the mainstream for skincare, thus Olay) to my face, I smiled on reflex. “Oh no, stop that,” she laughed, explaining that if you blush your cheeks when you smile, the colour will drop when you stop smiling and the effect will be to visually drag the face down.

And that’s nothing at all to smile about.

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