DEAR CAROLINE; Beauty.

Q. I have oily skin and suffer from a lot of break outs all over my face. I use a concealer but not long after applying it I find that it seems to melt into my skin and disappears. How can I make it last?

A. I don't know which concealer you are using so I will give you my tips on how to make it work for you. If you follow these tips you should feel happy that your make up is staying put and giving you the coverage you need.

I feel from what you say you'd probably also benefit from a foundation which looks natural, but that has great coverage. Try MAC's Studio Fix Fluid foundation, this will hide a lot of the skins imperfections making the covering with concealer easier and quicker. This is a liquid non-oily foundation which looks flawless when applied corre ctly.

To get the best coverage from this foundation use the MAC #190 brush and apply a little a time and build up more where needed.

If you haven't used a brush before, don't worry, it's easy - you can even get a MAC make up artist at your local store or counter to teach you if you feel apprehensive about trying.

Then I'd suggest going for the MAC #194 brush and Studio Finish Concealer.

Using a brush to apply the concealer will help it stay put longer.

To set your make up and keep the shine away, use MAC Blot powder in pressed form.

Last week I went to my cousin Vanessa's wedding. Although Vanessa is from Cramlington, she lives in Derby with her new husband.

The wedding was local to them in a lovely hotel at 3pm so, as I live in London, I decided to leave at 9am to get there in plenty of time as I was to do her make up.

I thought I probably wouldn't have too much time once I got there so my boyfriend drove up while I put my make up on in the car - very professional! I just wanted to be ready so all my time could be focused on Vanessa and her mam, my aunty Beatrice.

I hadn't seen Vanessa for a shamefully long time so wasn't sure what to bring, so I just decided to bring my full working kit - all I knew was that I'd probably be doing smoky eyes.

We pulled up at the hotel and saw my uncle Barry with his grand children coming across the car park - Vaness a's little boy and Vanessa's sister's (Joanna) two little girls - so cute!

And really strangely is was like going back in time - the two girls looked exactly like Joanna and Vanessa at their age - it was quite uncanny!

I find it much more nerve wracking to do wedding make up (I only do it for family and friends as a kind of gift) than to do a really famous persons as it's going to be one of the biggest days of their lives. My cousins looked exactly the same and hadn't changed a bit. Another of my cousins Andrew was there who is a film maker, so he was filming them getting ready and getting the champagne out etc.

I began by cleansing, massaging and moisturising Vanessa's skin to prepare her for the make up.

Once I had done this I used MAC Prep and Prime Skin to prime the skin before foundation and even out skin tone.

As she wanted smoky eyes I started there before applying foundation, this is a good tip if you are doing smoky eyes as you can clean any make up off easily if you drop colour on your cheeks.

Vanessa has gorgeous blue eyes and I decided to go for a dark silver colour on her lids (MAC eye shadow Silver Ring) to compliment her colouring, with a darker grey (Smut) through her socket line and under the eye.

On the top lid I used Liquid Last Liner in black. I asked her if she'd like false lashes applied and she did, but wasn't familiar with wearing them, so I decided to go for the MAC individual lashes.

Even though strip lashes are comfortable, you can absolutely not feel the individuals from the second they are applied and felt she would be less conscious of them as she wasn't used to wearing them.

I gave her a mixture of C-Thru MAC Lipglass and MAC Sapilicious Lip Gelee for her lips and once all the make up was done she had a look.

She loved it and so did her sister and mam so that made me really relieved and very happy.

While she was getting her hair done I did my auntie's make up and just used nice soft bronzy natural colours to bring out her lovely dark features.

Once it was time for Vanessa to get dressed she looked absolutely beautiful, but more importantly felt really beautiful and very special, and was thrilled with how she looked.

I felt so proud and she went down the aisle looking prettier than she had even thought.

The nice thing for her too was that she felt so pretty right up until the end - and her make up stayed put!