Online

• 1). Research your book. You can find cosmetics recipes online, modify and experiment with them at home. Fashion and art magazines are an excellent resource for inspiring your own makeup designs. Or you could contact professional beauty and makeup brands or aromatherapists to get advice and even interviews. Decide if your book is to be instructional, a fun read or just an image book.
  
  
• 2). Gather the images and text for the book. Include photographs of ingredients, finished products, or step-by-step-diagrams of makeup techniques. It is best to use your own photographs, but websites such as MorgueFile offer royalty-free images for non-profit making projects. Makeup artists and brands may also be willing to contribute images to your project in exchange for a credit.
  
  
• 3). Transfer the images and text on to your computer. You can do this by uploading files from a digital camera, typing text into a word-processing program or using a scanner to import images.
  
  
• 4). Format your book according to the instructions on the site you have chosen. This differs, but all self-publishing sites are designed for ease. Websites such as Blurb have a step-by-step, online formatting tool that allows you to directly import images and text. Others, like Lulu, require you to use software such as Microsoft Word so that they can save your project as a PDF file.
  
  
• 5). Choose the best quality paper and printing for a cosmetics book because it needs to visually engage readers. Order and pay for a copy of your book. Some publishers ask that you order a proof, but with others you can see your finished copy online.
  
  

By Hand

• 1). Select paper with the size and finish you desire for your book.
  
  
• 2). Research your book, then gather your text and images and try different layouts on the page without gluing anything down. You could experiment with the photos, hand-drawn images and writing.
  
  
• 3). Create the pages for your book.
  
  
• 4). Press single pages together under a heavy weight or ideally, with a clamp. Ensure the pages are evenly stacked. Paint the spine side with bookbinding glue, a special acid-free flexible formula available from craft stores.
  
  
• 5). Leave the glue to dry overnight or for a couple of days.
  
  
• 6). Attach the outside of the spine, which could be a strip of fabric or colored leather, with more glue. You could also choose to glue on a separate cover at this stage or make a slip-on one later.