Day to Night Makeup Without Starting Again

Taking a daytime face into the evening is a two-item job: darken the eye or deepen the lip, add a bit of light where the room has taken it away, and stop. The trick is building the base in the afternoon so that it can carry an extra layer at seven without needing to be redone first.

Starting again is the thing to avoid. A Dreamworx afternoon runs straight into the evening, and after five hours of daytime clubbing, a face that has been on since lunchtime has settled into your skin and looks better than anything you can build in a busy toilet queue with the light behind you.

Build For Later, Not For Now

Apply your base in the afternoon with the evening in mind. That means thin layers, set properly, and slightly less coverage than you would normally choose.

A light base takes an extra layer well. A heavy one has nowhere to go, so anything you add at seven sits on top and looks like a second face. If you want more cover, get it from concealer placed where you need it.

Keep your afternoon eye simple for the same reason. A finished smoky eye at three leaves you nothing to do later.

What You'll Spend

You are buying travel sizes, so this comes to very little.

• One darker shade you already own. A brown, plum or bronze pencil. No cost at all if it is in your drawer.
• A liquid lip or a stain in a stronger colour. The one thing worth buying new if you do not have it, and a few pounds gets you a good one in any high street chemist.
• A small highlighter or a balm stick. Anything that puts light back on the top of the cheek.
• Travel size setting spray. Cheap, and it settles everything you have just added.

What is not worth carrying is a full size foundation, a palette, or brushes. If it does not fit in a small bag with your phone, it is not coming.

Pick Two Changes, Not Five

The eye and the lip are the two that read from across a room. Do one of each or both of the same, and leave the rest of your face alone.

For the eye, press a darker shade into the lash line and blend it upwards with a fingertip. You do not need a brush and you do not need precision. Smudged along the base of the lashes is the whole effect.

For the lip, take the colour a shade or two deeper than your afternoon one. Blot, and put a second layer on the middle of the lip only.

Then one coat of mascara if you have it with you, and stop. Three changes is the ceiling. Five is where it starts to look like you are wearing a costume.

Do It Before The Light Goes

The best time to switch is earlier than you think, usually in a natural lull before the room gets properly busy. You want a mirror you can actually see in and a queue that is not five deep.

Blot first, always. Shine reads as more makeup than it is, and a face that has been blotted often needs nothing else at all. If you are honest about that, you can be out and back in three minutes.

Put Light Back On

Six hours flattens a face. The bit that goes missing is not colour, it is dimension.

Put a little light on the top of the cheekbone, down the nose if you like it, and on the middle of the lip. A cream or a balm works better than a powder here because it goes over a settled base without disturbing it, and this is the one exception to keeping creams underneath.

A touch of blush, pressed on with a finger, brings back more than another layer of foundation ever will.

What Not To Do

Do not add foundation. This is the mistake that turns a good afternoon base into a patchy evening one, because you are laying wet product over something that has already set.

Do not sweep powder across your whole face. Press it into the T-zone if you need it.

Do not attempt liquid liner in a club toilet. It is a job for a still hand, a good light and no queue behind you, and none of those are available.

And do not take it all off and start again, however tempting the mirror makes it look. There is no version of that which ends with you back on the floor in ten minutes.

The Other Switch

Changing your hair does as much as changing your makeup and takes less time. Put it up if it has been down, or take it down and shake it out if it has been up.

Do that, deepen your lip, smudge your liner, and you have gone from afternoon to evening in four minutes with a face that has been on since two and looks all the better for it.