by Lily S

Created on: June 28, 2010

It's actually hard to follow written instructions for putting on make up, because so much depends on how it looks. It's so much easier to follow a step-by-step video demonstration, which you can pause at critical points or replay. If you need make-up tips and are looking for some really good make-up instruction videos, you could do no worse than head for YouTube and the channel of

panacea81, otherwise known as Lauren Luke.

Lauren Luke is a 28-year-old girl from northern England, who started making short make-up videos in 2007. She was selling make-up on Ebay at the time, and felt her customers really needed a visual demonstration of how to put it on for best effect. She quickly built up a devoted following thanks to her down to earth manner and clear instructions. All the videos are made by herself in her bedroom, and you could be watching your best-friend putting make-up on, there's a really natural feel to all of them. 

Her videos have now been uploaded over 82 million times, and she now writes a column for Glamour magazine as well as the Guardian newspaper, and has her own make-up line. She is such a YouTube phenomenon, that when YouTube celebrated their five year anniversary, they got Lauren Luke, among others, to produce a short video telling of her You Tube story. 

The videos are of course free to view on You Tube and cover all styles of make-up. If you have ever wondered how Beyonce achieved some of the make-up effects in her videos, you'll find that Lauren Luke is on the case and has produced a how-to video showing exactly how it was done. If you want to wear special "face-paint" make-up to support your World Cup national team, Lauren Luke has a video on how to do it. If you want to look like Twilight's Vampire Jane, Lauren Luke will show you how.

She also does standard make-up videos, covering current fashion trends and showing you how to achieve the look. She does product  reviews and has produced a series of videos giving her all time best tips and recommending her favourite products.

Her fans follow her both on her You Tube channel and on twitter, and often her videos are inspired by requests she's got on Twitter for a particular look or style.  The interaction with her fans is part of the reason Lauren Luke has become a make-up guru.

If you are looking for make-up tips head over to Lauren Luke's channel and browse through the several hundred videos on there.

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