Can you afford to ignore the way you look? Everyone can improve their looks with a little knowledge and a lot of care. Looking your best gives you inner confidence you'll feel capable of so much more if you know you make a good first impression.

The important thing is to know how to use make up tricks to disguise facial faults and highlight your good pointsyou need never be ashamed of an overlarge nose or a long, thin face if they are subtly camouflaged. Hair styles, too, can do a lot to enhance your overall appearance. The right style can help to detract from your not so perfect features and the length of your hair can appear to alter the proportions of your body quite drastically.

Using blushers and shapers to contour the face in such a way as to deceive the eye, needs a steady hand and a light touch. A good set of brushes will help your job enormously as the colours will not only stay on better, but will blend in more successfully, too. Buy big, floppy cosmetic brushes they're kinder to your skin and won't leave harsh streaks of colour. Use smaller brushes for applying eye shadow that will stay on.

The basic rule is this use pale colours and gloss to highlight any feature that needs to draw and attract light and be brought to prominence. Pale colours also enlarge. Use darker, matte shades to give the impression of reducing and to make features appear smaller and thinner. Blend in colours thoroughly so that there are no harsh lines.

Face shapes Study the outline of your face. Is it round, square, long or oval shaped? Here's what you can do to improve the shape ....

Round face This will benefit from a darker powder being brushed into the sides of the face, starting from about eyebrow level, gradually fanning out into a triangle shape below the cheekbones (suck in cheeks to find the hollow) and then disappearing into nothing at the jaw bone. Be careful not to bring the colour round onto the chin area, as this will only have a shortening effect on a round face. Highlight chin, forehead and cheekbones to take eyes away from the sides of the face.

Hair styles to offset a round face should have height and straight lines to help square the circle. Avoid any extra width around the cheeks, and ears area and slim off round contours with a diagonal half fringe or bangs.

Square face Emphasize your forehead and minimize your jaw to throw your face into a better balance. Play down your heavy jawline by taking your dark shader under the cheekbones and fanning colour right down over the actual jaw. Highlight just the centre spot of the chin and draw eyes upwards with the use of interesting eye make up.

Hair styles that lend height to the face tend to offset the square jaw line though length of hair can vary. Never let hair come level with the jaw line, though. Soft and curvy lines, plus height, will help cut the corners, too.

Long face Make the most of your cheek bones and minimize your jaw line. Use a darker shade along your Jaw bone across the face and out towards temples. Highlight outermost tips of cheekbone. Finally dust your blusher along the middle of the forehead for a softening effect.

Best hairstyle for you is one with a fringe (bangs) or half fringe. Keep away from long, straight styles, though, and concentrate on those that give you width at about ear level.

Oval face You're one of the lucky ones practically any hairstyle will suit you and you can play about with face shap ings too and just settle for what you like. An oval cheek colour applied just below the cheekbone will accentuate your cheek bones, however, and if you apply a teardrop shape, it will make an oval face appear slightly rounder.

High forehead Disguise this with a soft fringe and by choosing a slightly darker than normal foundation to minimize the effect.

Low forehead Highlight to enlarge the area and choose a hair style which sweeps hair away from face.

Deepset, small eyes They need all the gloss, light and enlarging possible, so stick to pale coloured eye shadows and lots of mascara.

Close set eyes Concentrate colour on outer part of eyes only. Keep the inner part of the eye and over the top of the nose pale and shiny. Pluck brows so that instead of starting immediately above the tear duct, they are slightly wider apart.

Prominent eyes For a reducing effect, cover the entire eyelid with a dark, matte eye shadow, making it darker in the socket crease in order to make eyes seem more deeply set,

Long nose Use a darker foundation' around the nostrils and just underneath the tip. A long nose can also be made to look elegantly aristocratic when it's balanced by hair massed low at the nape in a small chignon or confusion of curls.

Your hairstyle and even the length of your hair can make your face appear to be a different shape and draw attention to good points.

Wide nose Give a narrowing effect by using brown shader down each side of the nose from bridge to the nostrils and highlight the very centre of the nose to make it more prominent.

Turned up nose To make it look straighter, put a little brown shadow on the turn of the nose to minimize the bridge crease.

Thin lips Use a brush to get a good outline and take lipstick colour slightly outside the natural lipline. Use medium and pale colours with lots of gloss to highlight.

Thick lips Using a lipbrush to give a good definite shape, take lip colour slightly inside the natural lipline. Use highlight and gloss on the inner part of the lip only.

Double chin Minimize the 'second' chin with a darker than normal foundation with a matte finish (and get busy with some facial exercises).

Receding chin Highlight your jawline with a pale shiny blusher and choose a hair style that gives you deep, fluffy curls onto the face and around and below the jaw line.

Short neck Choose a hair style with hair above or on the same level as the ear. Long hair will only succeed in making a short neck look even shorter.

Hair styles also depend on body shape. If for instance you have short, cropped hair and you have quite a large frame, the effect may be pin headed. Similarly a very petite person with long heavy hair may give the impression of being topheavy that is why a good look in a full length mirror is essential, in order for you to make the proportions right.