I love makeup and always have, from that fateful day in the mid 90s when I came across my mum’s stash in the cupboard under the sink and decided brown lipstick was the answer to all life’s problems.

Back then, being a pre-teen into her slap basically meant owning Rimmel’s Heather Shimmer lipstick, at least one frosted eye shadow and a couple of Body Shop eau de toilettes.

As time went by, I started picking up the basics from J17 magazine and good old trial and error, enhancing my ability from choosing a foundation that didn’t make me look like a tangerine to learning how to achieve that coveted feline flick with a glossy black eyeliner.

These days though, picking up tips on how to put your face on is on a whole different level, thanks to Instagram. Most high street beauty brands now sell lines especially marketed for young people who want to achieve the perfect selfie and gone are the days of making do with a dusting of powder and a slick of gloss. These days, beauty queens go for full coverage and they make it an absolute art form. And I love it – but I just can’t get down with it.

I’ve lost so many hours of my life watching people putting on makeup on the internet. But it’s akin to the way we watch The Great British Bake Off. You appreciate the pretty cakes on your screen but like hell can you be bothered to go through the blood, sweat and tears of whipping one up in your own kitchen for the office bake sale.

But in a fit of experimentation, I did decide to give it a go and I filmed myself one rainy afternoon trying a few trends I’ve seen reoccurring on my feed (I may have been subconsciously inspired by Lady Dickson who recently made her own epic contouring fail vid).

Here’s what I attempted…

Contouring

If you haven’t heard of this by now you probably don’t know any teenage girls, or Kim Kardashian. Contouring is basically when people draw thick brown lines on their cheeks and little penises on their noses and then spend about an hour blending it all in so that their face looks almost the same as at did before but a little more angular. No one does this in real, everyday life.

Heavy duty foundation

Beauty bloggers don’t dab a bit of concealer on to cover their spots. They smear a liquid mask on, creating a literal canvas to draw their new cartoon features on.

It creates the illusion of flawless skin on camera … but in real life, I suspect they look like they’re on their way to the morgue.

Overdrawn lips

Big lips are IN, more than ever, and a lot of beauty influencers are open about having injections to get a plumper pout. However, I’ve seen girls on Instagram go from having virtually no lips to giving Angelina Jolie a run for her money, all through the power of product.

Looks sort of convincing on camera… but in reality I looked like I was in the early stages of getting ready to audition in front of Ru Paul.

Graphic eyeliner

Now, this is where things get seriously impressive on Instagram – and horribly downhill for me. I pretty much throw a party if I manage to apply liquid eyeliner that looks over 80 percent even but scrolling through my feed I see literal art on eyelids. Forget the simple cat eye – we’re now in the days of graphic liner, where girls and guys draw concoctions on their faces that would make a Manga animator coo in wonder.

I failed this one horribly.

Extreme highlighting

This one is also known as “why the fuck has she put a massive dot on the end of her nose?” when my Insta-scrolling catches my boyfriend’s eye. I wish I could answer him – but to be honest I just don’t know. I don’t know why she’s got a massive dot on the end of her nose. And I don’t really know why I felt compelled to try this.

Anyway, I think I’ve made my point. Beauty bloggers on Instagram are mad, wonderfully mad and I’ll continue to watch them but I’ll never join them.

In retrospect, choosing to even breathe near the subject of beauty after finishing an early shift on four hours of sleep, a couple of days before my next appointment to get my roots done, was probably not the wisest decision I’ve ever made.

But here you go.