Makeup Tips For Women Over 50 Years Old

Makeup Tips For Women Over 50 Years Old

Depending on if you were a baby-oil wearer on the beach or religiously applied sunscreen…or somewhere in between, making sure that you are protecting your largest organ from the effects of UVA/UVB and HEV blue light rays, will make a difference in how well your skin holds up over time.

Changes in your skin over the decades will determine the way you apply your makeup and which types of products you should use.

Next, I will highlight what happens to your skin through the years so we can dive into the makeup tips for women over 50.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it’s up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.”

– Coco Chanel

20’s

In our twenties, we have great collagen support which keeps our skin supple and with a healthy glow.  Our subcutaneous fat around the apples of our cheeks is firm and perky.

How you care for your skin in this decade will determine what kind of damage you deal with in your 30’s, 40’s and beyond.

Using an anti-oxidant like vitamin C in your skincare routine is important AND so is the sunscreen!  Don’t forget the sunscreen!

30’s

By our thirties, if we haven’t been vigilant about using an anti-oxidant and sunscreen, our skin starts to show signs of uneven skin tone, broken blood vessels, and sunspots.  Hyperpigmentation like Melasma, which is brown patches, usually are the result of sun exposure, but pregnancy and birth control can cause it too due to a change in hormones.

By now, most of us start to lose volume in the mid-face and chin areas.

Using an exfoliating cleanser and a night-time resurfacing product should be added to your regular skincare routine.

40’s

In our forties,  drier skin leads to more pronounced lines and wrinkles.

Loss of volume in the deep fat pads around the temples and mid-face along with around the mouth and chin gives us the look of a sagging face when in reality its just loss of volume that is doing that.  The nose also starts to droop downward, causing a horizontal line between the brows and nasal folds around the cheeks.

Adding products with hyaluronic acid will help improve your skin’s moisture.

50’s

So arriving at our fifties, the texture of our skin is different.  Pores may be larger, the skin has dry patches and discoloration.  Lines and wrinkles are more pronounced.  Skin loses its dewiness and elasticity.  Sounds lovely, right?

But a good skincare routine will help with keeping the skin healthier and hydrated.

Makeup at any age is about enhancing your best features while covering your flaws.

Makeup Mistakes That Age You

I can’t emphasize enough how a good skincare routine is going to make your makeup look better.  You can’t build a palace on a poor foundation.

Some Common Mistakes

1. Not having a good skincare routine which includes products that have anti-oxidants, serums and moisturizers
2. Using thick, heavy or matte foundations that magnify the texture of your skin
3. Using powder over your foundation which draws the attention to your fine lines and wrinkles.   If you must, use a big, fluffy brush and apply lightly.
4. Using shimmery or pearlescent products that emphasize pore size and skin texture.
5. Not removing the peachy-fuzz from your face that becomes more prominent as we age.  You can do this through Dermaplaning at your esthetician’s office or with this Tinkle product I use at home.

Makeup Tips for Women Over 50 Years Old

As a 54-year-old woman, I’ve learned some tricks over the years on how to get a luminous, youthful glow through good skincare and makeup application.   I believe makeup is supposed to enhance and not hide.  But, sometimes older women have a few things to conceal as a result of the aging process.

  Always Start With A Good Skincare Routine

• Using products that don’t strip the lipid barrier of your skin is important.  Keeping the moisture in and not over-drying when washing is half the battle.
• You will also want to use a serum with bakuchiol (the clean version of retinol) or retinol if you aren’t opposed to that.  This will leave your skin tone more balanced and brighter and diminish pore sizes.  Here are two of my favorite skincare routines for anti-aging.  Countertime (clean beauty with Bakuchiol) and UBeauty (clean beauty with Retinol)
• Vitamin C is your friend.  Use it every day over your serum and under your moisturizer.  It’s a great anti-oxidant that provides armor for your skin as well as brighten and even the skin tone.
• Make sure to moisturize, moisturize, moisturize.  Day and night.  Preferably with a product with Hyaluronic acid in it, which draws water into your skin cells and plumps them up.  Amazing!
• Sunscreen is so important to prevent sun damage.

A Light, Liquidy Foundation Is Your Friend

Some older women think that they may need more coverage due to uneven skin tone, fine lines, and dark circles.  But, the opposite is true.  Heavier formulas accentuate those problems and don’t hide them.  In this makeup tutorial by @hindash, I’ve highlighted some of the keyframes in his video for makeup application on mature skin.

Using a thin layer of a creamy formula with a foundation brush works much better. See my post on 5 Tips On Color Matching Your Foundation.

When color matching, also look at neck, decollete’ and hands to match the foundation to.  Typically women may wear sunscreen on their faces daily but forget the rest of their bodies.  You don’t want your face color to not match the rest of your body.

Start in the center of your face when applying.  I like to use a Kabuki style foundation brush since it makes the application flawless.  Blend in outward circles towards the hairline and down your neck.  Remember this is a thin layer!  You can always add more later to sections that seem uneven.

You can also brush some foundation lightly on your eyelids, under eyes and lips to start with a fresh palette to build color on.

Conceal and Highlight

Using a light, liquidy concealer under your eyes and on eyelids will brighten them and make this the focal point of your face.  Make sure you go 1-2 shades lighter than your foundation shade since the thin skin on your eyes will appear darker anyway.

Gucci Westman, a world-class makeup artist, says that a trick to achieve a luminous glow is to apply highlighter before your foundation instead of after.  Gucci shows you how in this short video.

I use this Beautycounter Illuminating highlighter every day.  But the Westman Atelier Highlighter is great too! See more in the post Contour, Color, Illuminate.

Build Your Brows

Eyebrows tend to thin as we age, but they are the frames for our eyes and need to be tended to.  When we pencil them back in, it draws the focus back to the beauty of our eyes, the windows of our soul.

Using a brow pencil and/or a brow gel is a must unless you have had some micro-blading done to them.  Micro-blading is done by tattooing brows on your face to look like the real thing with fine, hairlike strokes.  It’s expensive, and needs to be touched up from time to time but can be worth it for those who have very sparse and over-plucked eyebrows.

In this video, Gucci shows you how to fill in your thinning brows and groom them to perfection.

Cream Blush and Contour To Build Volume

Because our skin is drier in our fifties, a cream blush looks better.  It gives us that dewy glow instead of a matte look that looked better when we were younger.

A few of my favorite cream blushes are by Westman Atelier and Beautycounter.  I literally draw the blush on the apples of my cheeks and a little to my forehead.  Using a peachy nude hue like Minette, helps aging skin look “alive”.

Here Gucci is applying her cream blush to her own face in this short video tutorial.  I have recently purchased her contour stick and her cream blush in Minette which is a peachy hue with a luminous glow. (not shimmery) The difference between her contour stick and Beautycounter’s Bronze Glow Illuminator is that it doesn’t have any shimmer in it, which is better around the jawline when contouring.

The Eyes Have It

As we age, a softer color around the eyes will highlight them better than a thick liner.  As our eyelids tend to droop, it’s difficult to apply a liquid liner without it looking like a squiggle instead of a straight line.  I will provide another post at a later date on how to apply liquid liner to aging eyes and how to “lift” them, but for now, it’s best to focus on a softer approach to your lash line with a powder eyeshadow.

Gucci Westman did a video on her Guide To Easy Evening Eyes, which is good to see if you like to wear eyeshadow.

Start with an eyelash curler to lift your lashes up and out.  Apply a luminous neutral shade all over your eyes, with a slightly darker shade in the crease.  Using a precision brush near your lash line with an even darker shade-drawing it upward and outward will give the appearance of lifted corners and more youthful eyes.

Add your favorite mascara and you’re done!