A professional makeup artist reveals the mirror mistake that's ruining our makeup - and how to fix it

If you've ever wondered why your makeup looks flawless in the mirror at home but somehow different the moment you step outside, you're not imagining it. The instinct is usually to blame the product - wrong shade, wrong formula, needs setting spray - but according to one professional makeup artist, the real culprit is usually far simpler, and far easier to fix.

In a woman&home Instagram reel, a professional makeup artist breaks down the one mistake she says almost everyone makes when they do their makeup – and it has nothing to do with technique or products. You could you use the best foundation on the market or the most professional brushes and still not see the results you want. The reason? It's all to do with the lighting.

"Most of us do our makeup in our bathrooms," says professional makeup artist, Caroline Barnes. And most bathrooms, she points out, only have one window, so "you've only got the light hitting you from one side." The alternative is just as tricky - no natural light at all, just, as she puts it, "these little round ceiling lights," the kind of overhead downlighting that flattens and distorts how your complexion actually looks.

The fix? Natural lighting. For anyone without reliable daylight, Barnes points to lighted mirrors as the next best thing, name-checking one she's recently discovered from Looking Glass – for the way the light sits around the edge of the glass rather than overhead. The reasoning: "the makeup will read exactly how you see it in daylight," so what you apply at your mirror matches what people will see when you're "talking to friends" outside.

One thing worth knowing before you buy a lighted mirror, though: some come with a toggle between a cool and a warm setting, and picking the wrong one "can really throw off your makeup" – so it's worth choosing a mirror with a daylight setting specifically, rather than whichever one happens to be switched on.

Affordable alternatives with a 'daylight' setting:

No lighted mirror? There's a workaround. Asked by woman&home's Beauty Director, Sarah Cooper-White, whether a small bathroom mirror propped on a windowsill would do the same job as a proper lighted mirror, the MUA's answer is more about positioning than kit. Her fix is what she calls a "sticky, sucky mirror" - a basic suction mirror - placed literally at eye level. The logic: when the mirror sits at the right height, you see your face "in your best shape, your best form," and that's what lets you "create the best type of makeup."

Why it's worth the effort

Whether you're applying your makeup with minimal natural light or bad indoor lighting, both scenarios cause the same problem: you're applying makeup under lighting that doesn't match how your face will look once you're out in the world, whether that's daylight or the lighting at a friend's house. "That's five, six minutes just wasted," Barnes says, as you have to start all over again or just go on about your day wearing a look you don't like.

Her advice is refreshingly simple. If you do have access to daylight, or any of the snazzy mirrors she suggested, position your mirror so it's facing the window, not your back to it. "So you've got a bit of light even in the face," she explains - and "instantly, without makeup, you'll look better," because you can actually see what you're working with.

Beyond precision, Barnes frames good lighting as something closer to self-care than technique: "just for pure pleasure and boosting your self-esteem, putting your makeup on in a good light... is really key to getting a great job done." Whether that's a lighted mirror or simply turning to face a window, the underlying point is the same – the light you apply your makeup in is doing more work than any product in your bag.