SOMETIMES, women scare me.

Just last night, I saw a couple of women who looked too much like men... in drag. And I wasn't even plastered.

These women were wearing too much make-up as if they needed to hide something.

It isn't a pretty sight.

Some people need makeovers, others are in need of make-unders. Just check out the albums on Facebook and you'll see what I mean.

You know the ones of folks who upload 700 pictures of themselves, from the good, the bad and the truly scary. (Clearly, discretion escapes some.) .

Why do some women show up in pictures like it is Halloween every day?

Their lids are speckled with so much fairy dust, their lash extensions sit like spindly spider legs on their eyes, and their cheeks are so heavily rouged, you'd think they've been smacked.

On the other spectrum, you see the ones who are so super confident they don't mind being seen bare-faced, spots, dots and all.

Make-up should be a girl's best friend, not her worst enemy.

The products are there to enhance your features, not hide or disguise them.

You're not a drag entertainer, so quit thinking like one. Not all of us are meant for the stage. There is a distinction between runway and real way.

That's the fine line(r) you draw between inspiration and realisation.

For example, Amy Winehouse may set a stage presence with her heavy kohl-liner wingtips and Bardot tease, but offstage?

The look works at the HK7's south stands - where people ham it up to watch the annual rugby matches every March.

Bear in mind that even when Karl Lagerfeld made Amy his Chanel muse last season, the wing-tip look and bouffant was scaled down to make it runway pretty, not camp.

There's nothing more fashion victim than looking like you've walked off a runway or music video, wholesale.

It's adaptation, not imitation, please.

Stamp-heavy smoky eyes are bold and dramatic on catwalks, where the lights, the clothes, the backdrop all work in sync to create an impression, but in real life, tip the lids with too much black shadow and you'll look more like Kung Fu Panda instead.

Bright hyacinth blue eye shadow may be stunning for spring's show looks, but even the pros will tell you that the peacock flash is too traffic-stopping for work.

For real wear, that shade is better used as a liner to accent eyes.

Take it easy

Go for glow should be reinterpreted offstage.

Those glossy lids and cheeks may create an ethereal dewiness in front of the cameras, but you know in our humidity, that just spells greasy.

It's best you contain that glassy sheen on lips. And when the season calls for going nude, that doesn't mean going bare face.

It is instead, as what renowned English make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury says of this spring's pared-down beauty: 'Natural, healthy, chic and modern; beautiful with a subtle edge given with lots of monochromatic oyster, taupey and mushroomy tones'.

Because some women clearly need a little help in bringing out their face.

And there should be no shame in that either.

This article was first published in The New Paper.