"EVER since I joined the MAC Pro team a year ago there is no such thing as a typical day any more. I'm constantly on call with my kit at the ready and my passport in my back pocket. There are no set start and finish times at the catwalk shows in Paris, Milan and London and we could be up as early as 3am and work right through till 2am. Copious amounts of coffee and Red Bull are our fuel and as for food, well eating happens whenever you get the chance. There is no such thing as a 9-5pm day as a make-up artist and that's fine by me. I hate routine and thrive on the last-minute chaos that prevails in my industry.

The show season itself is manic, amazing, tiring, inspiring and a crazy world only known to itself. For me, working with the likes of Alexander McQueen is typical of how much impact a show can have. His shows always leave me covered in goose bumps, high as a kite and disappointed and strangely resentful that they're always over too quickly.

Getting the chance to work with legends like Pat McGrath and Val Garland in the field of make-up and Guido and Eugene Soluman in the world of hair artistry is like a dream come true. These are the people who are constantly breaking boundaries and displaying artistic genius, and we are lucky enough to work with them regularly at the shows.

I grew up in Dumfries and have always been fascinated with makeup, but initially didn't think I could carve a career out of it. Working on a counter in a department store or waxing legs isn't quite what I had in mind for myself. I'm from a very creative family, my mum is an artist and my dad is an architect, so if I couldn't work in the creative side of cosmetics, I decided I wasn't going to do it at all.

Instead I studied philosophy at university but dropped out and decided to seriously pursue a career in make-up instead. I was and am very focused on the fashion side of the industry. Prosthetics and period make-up artistry aren't really of interest to me, it's fashion artistry I'm passionate about. So in timehonoured tradition I waited tables, saved hard (the courses are a bleeding fortune) and studied at the London College of Fashion whenever I could. Not very haute couture, but it paid the bills.

I started working with MAC in one of their London stores three years ago, and gradually moved up closer to Scotland, spending six months in Newcastle then working at the Edinburgh counter in Harvey Nichols before spending a year at the Glasgow counter in Frasers. If pushed to name one beauty faux pas women commonly make, it's over-plucking their brows; trust me anorexic eyebrows are not in fashion. Grow them in girls and get them professionally threaded or tweezed. I'm not some sort of beauty Nazi though, I love flaws, and like enhancing people's more quirky features such as Erin O'Connor's prominent brow or work with a feature that someone is less confident about. My philosophy is to try and draw out someone's natural beauty rather than masking it.

Just over a year ago I went for an extremely nerve-racking interview for a senior artist position with MAC and was ecstatic when I was told I had the job. There are only five senior artists in the UK and 50 worldwide, so competition for these coveted positions is fierce. I was up against 55 other artists and the interview covered everything a senior artist has to do, namely working with the press, giving quotes on new directions and working on editorial shoots.

One year in and really it has been better than I could ever have imagined. I've worked with the likes of Sienna Miller, Kelly Osbourne, Isabella Blow and a legion of supermodels. I've been all round Europe working on the International Collections, done Fashion Rocks in Monte Carlo, eventually rather surreally ending up on Bryan Adams' yacht with a posse of Osbournes, Posh and Donatella Versace for company. At Elton John's stag do we did the make-up for his cabaret, and stayed to watch the show which was as fine a way to end 2005 as a girl can get.

I've just been back in Scotland for a couple of weeks. At The Edinburgh International Fashion Festival shows I was the head make-up artist at Vivienne Westwood (pictured above), Jonathan Saunders and Matthew Williamson. Tonight I'll be working at the Scottish Fashion Awards at Stirling Castle. As MAC are the official make-up brand for the event, I'm heading up a team of artists in an exclusive MAC suite in the castle doing make-up appointments for the nominees, VIPs and celebrities attending. I'm feeling pretty proud and patriotic about it and am excited to be meeting some of the next generation in Scottish talent. I worked on Christopher Kane's graduation show so my fingers are crossed for him tonight.

After that I am heading off to Barcelona to be Terri Hatcher's make-up artist at the Laureus Sports Awards. It really is a case of everything I do tops the last thing.

And, as for the future? I want to get to the top of my field, building up a rapport with beauty editors, working on more editorial shoots and continuing to grow at MAC.

They've given me some amazing opportunities and are like a family to me now."

The Scottish Fashion Awards take place at Stirling Castle tonight