Makeup tricks to camouflage a big nose

Bushra S Khan tells you how you can camouflage a big nose with smart make up tricks. A Grecian nose that continues in the line of the forehead without a dip sounds like a dream, yes? All that gab about accepting what you have and being comfortable with yourself work fine in self-help books. But one look at the gorgeous faces looking down upon you from huge billboards can send your confidence levels to the lowest depths of despair. Well, there's always rhinoplasty for a quick fix. But for those of you unwilling to spend a bomb on surgery or simply reluctant to go under the knife, here's what you can do to make a big nose look more appealing. Accentuate Accentuate your eyes and lips. Keep the focus on your eyes by going for a dark eyeliner and mascara. Make your lips stand out by playing around with bright and bold colours. Keep your make up balanced. Don't be heavy-handed with both your eyes and lips. Hair Hair plays a major role in bringing out your best and worst features. Avoid short haircuts that will highlight your nose. Go for a haircut with layers but avoid bangs that fall on your face. You can opt for side-swept bangs, but avoid front, blunt bags. Aim at keeping your hair fluffy and voluminous rather than flat and limp. Contouring Sounds like rocket science? Don't you fret. All it takes is patience and lots of practice to perfect the art! - Start with a clean face. Apply a little toner. - Apply your usual foundation on the face. - Choose a foundation that's a shade darker than your regular foundation and apply it to the sides of your nose (to cover a wide nose) or to the tip of your nose (to cover a long nose). The tricky part is not applying the foundation, but how well you blend it so that it looks natural. - Apply a lighter colour on the bridge of the nose. Blend thoroughly. - Apply a translucent powder on the sides of the nose. You don't want the foundation on your nose to be visible or stand out. Sonam Chandna, make up artist, says: You have to remember that the centre of your face is your eyes. So visually, people first look at your eyes. Psychologically too, people look at your eyes and then your lips. Your nose will be noticed only if it is really big. If you want to align your nose, you must highlight the bridge just till the point before it ends and not all the way to the tip. If you highlight the bridge right upto the tip, you will have a pinched look. When the bridge is highlighted and the sides are matte and (slightly) darker, the nose looks shapely. You could also use a luminiser from the point where your eyebrows start to a little before the tip of your nose. Luminisers give you a dewy, natural look and you can actually carry off this look without anybody knowing you've worked on making up your nose. Be very careful that the sides of your nose are not oily. An oily nose should be avoided at all costs. When you click pictures with a flash, the oil will reflect in it. So anything oily looks bigger than it actually is. So keep your nose scrubbed and clean at all times and mattify with a pressed powder!