Regardless of what type of skin you had as a teenager, as you progress in age, you will realize that the elasticity, glow and color of your skin have started to change and fade. For this reason, mature women over the age of 40 should take extra care and precautions to ensure they continue enjoying healthy skin.
All you need to do is to invest a little time in yourself, particularly in your skin care routine, and use makeup in a smart yet subtle way. This ensures that all those tell-tale signs of age are successfully and easily camouflaged. Giving you an overall elegant and sophisticated look, smart makeup compliments your mature personality and reflects well with your dressing sense.
The march of the years is bound to leave behind a number of signs that are sure to let the cat out of the bag. The good news, however, is that makeup can be a mature woman’s best friend, should she know how to use it and not abuse it. Given below are certain commonly occurring signs of age, and certain tried and tested makeup tips and techniques that can help mature women camouflage or subdue their appearance.
Dark circles and skin pigmentation
As you age, you tend to sleep less, worry more, wear spectacles etc.; all habits that tend to stress your eyes, leaving dark patchy skin under your eyes, commonly referred to as dark circles. Makeup experts suggest that since the underlying eye area becomes thinner and more delicate with age, mature women should opt for a good quality liquid foundation and concealer that matches well with their overall skin tone.
Using light feathery strokes, you must blend the concealer until it camouflages those dark blue and black sites of pigmentation.
Fine lines and crow’s feet
Most women start developing wrinkles, fine lines and crow’s feet under and around their eyes around the age of 30-35. Trying to cover such crow’s feet using too much eye shadow or eye makeup can look
disastrous. If not applied carefully, such powder textured makeup tends to settle in the creases of your crow’s feet and wrinkles, accentuating them rather than hiding them.
The best solution then is to apply light makeup in this delicate area, using gentle strokes of a soft brush or even your index finger. In this area of your face, any and all makeup that you apply has to simply glide on. Anything applied with a heavy hand or pressure will only work to highlight these facial flaws.
Age spots and freckles
Years of time spent in the sun often catches up with mature women in the form of freckles and age spots. The worst thing about these two adverse skin manifestations is that they are generally difficult to hide and they can appear anywhere and everywhere on your face. The only way that you can successfully camouflage them is to use a quality primer all over your face so that it acts as a barrier between your natural skin and the makeup you’re about to apply. Once applied, you need to wait for this primer to partially dry before applying concealer on it.
Then apply your liquid foundation. Let the foundation settle and then apply some color correcting concealer on those age spots and freckles that are still peering from under the foundation. Here, you must blend your foundation and concealer seamlessly with short strokes of your finger, or you could even use light, outward brush strokes if using a powder texture concealer. However, should you only have a couple of age spots and freckles that need covering, you can always choose to do spot application using a concealer stick and skip the whole primer, foundation, concealer rigmarole.
Lastly, you can dust some translucent loose powder all over your face to ensure that your makeup stays in place the whole day. While the market is flooded with numerous kinds and textures of such basic and essential face makeup, for mature women the best option is mineral-based makeup/mineral liquid foundation as it is light on the skin.
Drooping eyelids
With age, everything on your face sags, including your eyelids, giving you a perpetually sleepy or disinterested look. A good makeup trick to combat droopy eyelids is to apply your favorite eyeliner only to your upper lids. Start by applying your eyeliner from the centre of the lash, taking the line onto the outer corners of your eyes giving them the much needed, slightly lifted look that compliments your face.
However, you need to keep in mind that you must use a light hand while applying your eyeliner, as a thicker application of such eyeliner can accentuate your droopy eyelids further. Similarly, some mascara and an eyelash curler can both be applied only to the upper eyelashes to give them an illusion of being longer and thicker.
Dark lips
Years of lipstick use slowly start turning your lips a shade darker and thinner. Mature women should stay away from dark shades of lipstick as it generally doesn’t flatter their thin lips. Instead, such women should stick to colors and shades close to their natural lip color such as those in hues of pink and rose.
Choose a matte texture over a shiny one, and try using lipsticks which have balms or moisturizers in them as these shall ensure that your lips stay hydrated and don’t lose their color. And as always, mature women need to be extra cautious about matching their lip color to their overall makeup, their skin tone and the clothes they are wearing.
Sagging skin
The most commonly affected area on your face is usually your chin which tends to create loose and sagging skin. Most women hate this, and many choose to go under the knife or undergo invasive surgeries such as facelifts. However, you can always save yourself the time and money by choosing to use corrective contouring makeup that camouflages and hides your sagging skin in this area.
Such corrective contouring makeup is known to use creative shading and highlighting techniques to hide all the unflattering features of a mature woman’s face, giving her a virtual facelift. The best way to hide such sagging skin is to apply a darker shade of powder/blush/foundation just underneath your chin area and also at the sides of your jawline.
Thinning eyebrows
As with skin, your hair too becomes thin with age and as a result, mature women tend to lose hair not just from their head but also from their eyebrows. To make your eyebrows appear thicker, mature women should choose to use good quality eyebrow pencils and eyebrow brushes that can help create the illusion of a thicker and natural eyebrow. Such thinning or sparse eyebrows should not be plucked with tweezers, and should instead be filled in using any commonly available brow powder or pencil.
While the above mentioned tips and techniques can help you hide skin flaws that appear with age, the best way to fight them is to prevent them or minimize their appearance. Keeping this in mind, here is some good advice on how to keep your skin looking healthy and glowing beyond 30.
Buy and use only quality makeup
Mature women should stick to using light mineral-based makeup or the light reflecting kind of makeup that is known to lend a subtle, natural glow and a softer feel to their face which complements their mature age. Also, liquid and matte textures are best suited for mature skin. Powder makeup is also good, but only for certain areas of the face such as your eyes but even here it needs to be applied sparingly. Powder makeup has an annoying tendency of accumulating in the creases or fine lines of a mature face, making them more pronounced and obvious.
Never abuse makeup
For mature women, less makeup is always more. For such women, what matters is not what kind of makeup you apply, but how and where you apply it. Mature women have delicate skin that is thinner and cannot take the onslaught of layers and layers of makeup. Caking up makeup on such thin skin can really give you a bad case of breakouts and acne if you are not careful.
The trick to applying such makeup is never to overdo it or abuse it. Instead, mature woman should use such makeup sparingly and in a smart way to highlight only their best facial features. Also, mature women should trade in the use of gloss and shimmer for some light reflecting makeup that gives their skin a subtle, natural looking glow great for both day wear and night use.
Develop a healthy skin care routine
As a teenager, you may take your skin for granted, but as you age you simply cannot do so anymore. To ensure your skin stays healthy and retains its natural glow over time, you need to invest some time and focus on developing a good, daily skin care routine that involves the daily cleaning, scrubbing, toning, use of a suitable mask and lastly moisturizing your skin. Along with this, you need to ensure you get at least 6 hours of deep sleep, stay out of direct sunlight and drink as much water as possible.
A healthy skin has a natural glow and soft feel to it, which no amount of makeup can ever compensate for. Another important component of a healthy skin care routine is to remove all makeup before going to bed and wash your face first thing in the morning and at night. Don’t forget to make sunscreen an essential’ part of your day care routine as regular use of a good quality sunscreen is bound to protect and nourish your skin, keeping it supple.