ASK any woman who wears make-up and she’ll say that it’s all too easy to slip into applying the same colours with the same tired, old routine every day.

Janet Depledge, 60, from Denby Dale, says this had most definitely happened to her.

“I think my make-up is incredibly boring. I just use foundation and a bit of eyeshadow. I can do the whole lot in about three minutes flat,” she explained.

“I find it really difficult to get the colours right.”

Which is why we thought that Cath Hepworth, a Colour Me Beautiful consultant, could help.

Cath, 43, from Brighouse, has her own image business, www.dream-makeover.co.uk, and works from a custom-built room at home. She decided to train as a consultant after having her ‘colours done’ before her wedding to husband Andrew last year.

“I’d had my colours done when I got married the first time around 16 years ago and I was so impressed this time that I thought it was something I could do.

“Most of us know which colours don’t suit us but just need help finding those that do and putting a look together,” she says.

“The first step is to find out which colour palette is right,” she added. “Once you’ve got that you’ll know what colours you can wear and what make-up to use. The right colours can take 10 years off someone.”

Janet, a self employed children’s services consultant working for Oldham Council, has fair skin, light auburn hair and blue/grey eyes. Married to husband Graham, with three grown-up sons and two grandsons, she admits that her beauty routine has been stuck in a rut for years and she has a lot of clothes that she doesn’t feel comfortable in.

Cath, who has a background in marketing and trained as a primary teacher, explained that the Colour Me Beautiful system assigns us all to one of six main colour groups – soft, warm, cool, clear, deep and light. “Janet is a ‘soft’ like me,” she said, after performing a colour swatch test, “with warm undertones.

“That means she can wear any colour but it needs to be watered down a little. Softs need to wear tone on tone colours. She’ll look particularly good in the ‘Armani’ colours of camel, beige, taupe and gold, but can also wear coral and jade green.”

It also means she’s in the company of superstars such as Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss, both ‘softs.’

The soft make-up palette includes green and brown for the eyes and muted corals for the lips.

Janet, who suffered from a detached retina earlier this year and has just had laser surgery to her right eye, said the health problems had left her lacking confidence when applying eye make-up.

“I want a new look but I don’t want to look over made-up,” she explained.

However, using the correct colour palette and a light-reflecting foundation, Cath achieved a natural but groomed make-up for Janet, who was delighted.

Cath persuaded her to wear a light sweep of blusher, something that she’d never used before. “I’ve got quite rosy cheeks so I’ve always stayed away from blusher,” said Janet, who was shown how to use a green correcting product to tone down the redness before applying foundation.

Learning how to use new products is part of updating a daily make-up routine. Cath also introduced Janet to the idea of using an eyebrow pencil and lipstick.

“Janet has quite pale eyebrows so giving them a little definition will help to enhance her features. Eyebrows frame the face,” she explained.

“Lipstick introduces a little colour into what is quite natural, minimal make-up. On Janet I’ve used a sheer colour.”

Janet felt that she’d learned a lot from her colour consultation and went away with a wallet of colour swatches and a make-up colour chart to help her in the future.

“My make-up is really subtle but lovely, it’s just what I wanted,” she said.