I hate glitter. I avoid it like the plague – not only is it very difficult to apply it in a way that doesn’t make you look like a low-rent dancer in a euro-trash pop video, it’s an absolute nightmare to take off. I dread it when I turn up to a shoot and the makeup artist has the pots of glitter out at the ready, a towel beneath them to catch the inevitable fall-out; I hate the feeling of glitter-on-skin – especially around the eye area!

The photo to the left is pretty much my idea of makeup hell (it’s not me by the way; they would have had to tie me down or sedate me) and although I’ve never had a look that extreme imposed on me, I have had pretty full-on glitter moments as a model. I remember one makeup artist in Milan deciding that (without warning) he would ‘add some shimmery’ to my face: he held the pot of glitter pigment in front of my face and then blew into it so that we were both covered in gold! The fool.

When removing glitter – especially around the eyes – be really, really careful. Depending on the size of the pieces and the quality of the makeup, the glitter might have really sharp edges and if you scrub or rub to remove, you’ll find yourself with a very sore face! I have found that the following method works very well for me: copious amounts of an eye makeup-remover containing oil (a two-phase such as Clinique’s Take the Day Off) applied by pouring into the palms of your hands and then quickly pressing hands over the eye area. The oil should loosen off glitter quickly without you having to rub at the skin. Make sure that you’re standing over a sink!

Once the glitter is loose, you can work away with damp pads of cotton wool to remove the makeup remover, and hopefully most of the glitter. A facial cleansing oil such as the (amazing) ones made by Shu Uemura can then be used to give the whole face a deep and thorough clean.

Now the annoying bit: you’re left with specks of glitter all over the shop! Your face looks clean, but every time you catch the light at a different angle, you see more and more bits! You can try using a cotton bud and hope that the bits stick, but you’ll quickly find that this method is futile. What you need, and bear with me on this one, is sellotape. Sellotape, masking tape or, if tape is nowhere to be found, a sticking plaster. Fold the tape or sticking plaster around on itself with the sticky side outwards, and really gently dab at your face in the places where glitter is stuck. If the tape feels too sticky and your skin is sensitive, dab the back of your hand first to remove some of the adhesive.

This works an absolute treat – my apologies to those who know this trick and consider it to be blindingly obvious! The reason I thought of this today is because last night I tested out Topshop’s Crayon in ‘Woodland’ and applied it without realising (until too late!) that it was shot through with glitter. This morning I need to do some filming and glitter on camera is just an enormous pain in the neck. So there – a cheap and easy trick for those of you who have a thing for glitter.