Beauty: Carmindy shares her makeup secrets for getting spring’s freshest face

But where to start? For advice, we turned to makeup expert Carmindy Bowyer from the TLC's "What Not to Wear."

"What Not to Wear" is in its ninth season and Carmindy (who goes by the single name) has been there since the beginning. She has worked with top magazines and has a makeup line called Sally Hansen Natural Beauty and a new book, "Crazy Busy Beautiful," that hit shelves March 30. She even does private 1½ hour make-up consultations in New York, where she is based.

"Between the show and being a makeup artist for over 20 years, I've done thousands of makeovers," Carmindy says. She says that her clients get into a rut primarily because they learned about makeup when they were in high school. "Then they kind of just went along with their life," Carmindy says. "And as they grow older, they hear about different trends as far as color, but they never update their makeup wardrobe in terms of the new formulas, picking the correct shades and learning how to apply things correctly."

Step 1: Out with the old

"Things change, technology changes and makeup has changed," Carmindy says. During a consultation, the first thing she does is clean out her client's makeup bag. "I get rid of all of the old junk," she says. This includes tossing mascara more than 3 months old and either cleaning or replacing brushes. ("One of the biggest sins in a makeup bag is that women don't clean their brushes," she says. The brushes "get really matted down, not applying makeup on the skin nicely, and are harboring lots of bacteria.")

Next, get rid of any makeup that mattes the skin too much, or is too thick, heavy, chalky or opaque. "Like all of those powdery foundations," Carmindy says. "It makes your skin look dull, tired and old. It's all about light-reflecting now, seeing skin and light, sort of sheer, watercolor textures."

Under-eye concealers that are too thick and opaque "wind up looking muddy under there, and it settles into fine lines and creases." Apply concealer after foundation and use a formula that brightens, bounces light and seems to disappear into the skin. "That's much more modern," she says.

But the No. 1 thing that signals a makeup rut is colored lip liner. "Throw it away — it's a thing of the past," Carmindy says. "Women are using pinks, purples and browns and all of those crazy lip liners, and it looks wrong… although for a long-lasting red lip it's OK to use red lip liner with red lipstick." Colored lip liner is the hardest product to pry out of women's hands, Carmindy says, with the problem harking back to the '90s "when we were being bombarded with this set standard of beauty."

"In the '90s, women used to draw on this fake, perfect big lip. Well, lips are beautiful small, large, crooked, quirky — it doesn't matter," she says. She favors clear lip liners that will lock in lipstick to prevent it from bleeding and liners that highlight. She likes the lip shaper "Cupid's Bow" by Benefit, Guerlain's "Cupidon" lip liner/highlighter and Sally Hansen's "Invisible" lip liner. Put on liner first and then apply lip color.

Carmindy says that the 1970s were more about natural beauty, the 1980s about wearing crazy colors, and the 1990s about a super-model-perfect standard of beauty — "which doesn't exist." In the 2000s, it's all about makeup and makeup textures that enhance unique individual beauty, she says. "I'm very much against fixing flaws because I don't believe that women are flawed," Carmindy says.

Step 2: Do your homework

After throwing out the old, it's time to forge into the department stores and drugstores to purchase new products. But educate yourself first. Carmindy suggests reading makeover books and makeover blogs such as dailymakeover.com or stylecaster.com and watching makeover videos on YouTube or her own website videos.

"This way you'll be like ‘OK, so this is how I get my day face or this is how I get my five-minute face," she says. Write down the list of products you need and how to use them. Also, go to your dermatologist to find out which products and ingredients really will benefit your skin. "That way," Carmindy says, "You don't go to [a department store] and get sold on ‘Oh, it's a miracle cream!' for $300."

Step 3: Take control