I'm here to get you on the road to understanding makeup. Welcome to Makeup 101, your personal makeup application lesson! This month, learn how simple touches like nicely groomed eye brows and well defined lips can make you look and feel completely polished.

Brows

Whether you have full or sparse, light or dark eye brows, any type can benefit from a little grooming. Eye brows are the frames for your eyes and can express a lot about you and your style.

You'll only need a few tools to get your brows in tiptop shape:

• Something to brush them with - an old toothbrush, a clean mascara wand style brush, or a stiff, angled makeup brush.
• Tweezers in the shape you prefer; I like the angled kind, but you might like one that has a more precise point.
• An eyebrow pencil or powder that closely resembles your hair color (unless your hair is lighter or darker than your eye brows; then choose a brow color that matches your brows for more contrast, or one that matches your hair color for less contrast).
• A clear gel brow fixative like "Brow and Lash Gel" from The Body Shop or "Just Browsing" from Origins.

For overall grooming and upkeep, get to know the natural shape of your brows. If and when you do tweeze out any stray hairs, you'll be able to maintain a more natural look if you understand the way your brows grow. For me, I have a fairly decent arch that I can maintain by just tweezing the stray hairs I get in between the two brows. If I want a more dramatic arch, I just tweeze out a single row of hairs from the bottom of each brow, which opens up the eye area and makes my eyes look larger.

If you are just starting out with tweezing, go slowly and patiently. It's easier to pluck more if you need to than it is to draw in the hairs you didn't mean to pluck out.

Once you have a shape you like, you can fill in any holes or sparse areas with an eye brow pencil or powder. With either method, always use small, gentle strokes so the color looks more like hair than a dark line. Again, go easy on the color or your brows will completely dominate your face. After applying the color, brush through it with an old toothbrush, a clean mascara wand style brush (MAC #24, for example), or a stiff, angled makeup brush. Finally, if your brows are naturally full like mine, finish off with a coat of a clear brow gel to keep the hairs in place. You can even do the gel by itself if you don't need or want any color.

Lips

With so many lipstick shades to choose from these days, there is bound to be something to suit everybody! If you have a lipstick wardrobe like mine - 25 colors and counting - it's not the shade that's the challenge, it's the application.

All you need for perfect lips are:

• Lip Balm
• Your favorite shade of lipstick
  My current personal favorites are Bobbi Brown "Nude", MAC "Skew", Revlon Line & Shine "Flesh", Christian Dior "Autumn Rose", and Philosophy "Liberation"
• A matching liner
  I must make a note here that while some women still wear a liner that is noticeably darker than their lipstick, I personally think it looks ridiculous. Please don't do it.
• Lip brush

Once the lip balm has fully absorbed, there are two ways to go about applying your lipstick and liner. The first is to apply the liner first, following the natural shape of your lips, then fill them in with the lipstick. The other method is to apply the lipstick first, then line over the top. If you have a problem with your lipstick disappearing but a ring of liner remaining, putting the lipstick on first, then the liner, will work better for you.

Personally, I like to line first, then fill in with color. I feel like the liner makes an easy road map so I can literally color within the lines. Try both ways to see which one suits you.

Since lining itself can be a bit tricky, I always start with a pointy pencil at one corner of my lower lip and work toward the center, using short strokes that blend the color into the lip itself. I do that for both corners, upper and lower lips, working into the center. I then concentrate on the cupid's bow in the center of my upper lip, making sure it's defined but not too pointy.

After you've applied your color and your liner, use the lip brush to blend the two together so there are no edges. Blending will also help the color last longer.

That's all there is to it! Three simple lessons on foundation and powder, eye shadow and blush, and brows and lips are all it takes for an easy, polished makeup look.