Tried and tested: makeup tutorials at Brick Lane's Athena beauty boutique

If you want somebody to do your make-up before a night out, you could head to any fast beauty boutique. But if you want to learn how to do your own make-up for all the nights out to come, Athena could be for you. As the old saying goes, give a woman a smoky eye, and she'll look hot there and then. Teach a woman who how to do her own smoky eye and she'll smoulder forever.

Athena beauty boutique in Brick Lane was founded by make-up artist Aleysha Mawani, who by her own admission is 'massively into vintage'. It's no surprise then that the salon is decorated with more than a subtle nod to the 1950s.

Massive gold-leaf mirrors have been customised with lightbulb frames upstairs, whilst the make-up lesson rooms downstairs look like studio dressing rooms. And whilst makeovers are very much part of the service here, the emphasis is on teaching us how to do our own make-up.

Aleysha, who's worked on editorial shoots and celebs for nearly ten years, was inspired to open the boutique after checking the popularity of YouTube make-up tutorials. "Everyone wants to learn how to do their make-up professionally. And after we've taught them here, we encourage them to Instagram the results to share with everyone else."

Aleysha also wanted to offer something different from the average department store beauty counter. "On a counter you get taught how to use a product but then the sales person will push that product on you. It's all about making you buy something. It's not about teaching you a skill."

Aleysha and her team give individual and group make-up lessons on a range of techniques and looks, from on-trend contouring to the aforementioned smoky eye - that's a three-hour lesson, so no wonder I haven't been getting it right in my five-minute DIY sessions at home.

I opted to learn an eyeliner flick as I was interested to see how Aleysha's technique would differ from mine. Even though I've been eyeliner flicking for years, I did learn a couple of new tricks: go over the line with dark eyeshadow to smooth and soften it as well as to fill in and thicken the flicky bit.