Guest beauty expert Leonard Daly on how to do your make-up as you get older for the most flattering finish and the best make-up for mature skin
We live in a time that if you are unhappy with anything on your face you can change it, fast. In the age of Botox and fillers, more and more people are having treatments done that quite literally make lines disappear or change the shape of their lips. It is brilliant that you can change the thing that makes you self-conscious about yourself, if you want to. But not everyone wants to go the route of injectables. If you’d rather keep it to beauty and skincare without extra intervention, here are my top three tips for keeping your makeup fresh …
Firstly, and most importantly, only ever use a light textured foundation – the sheerer the better. I would tend to always use a tinted moisturiser or even add some moisturiser to a foundation to lighten the texture. Foundation’s job is to even out your skintone – you do not need to wear full coverage. If you have any skin issues that require more coverage, use a good concealer on the affected areas and a sheer foundation on the rest of your face. By doing this the majority of your skin will look fresh and youthful. I always use my fingers to apply foundation and blend it in, tapping it in never rubbing it in like a cream. And then apply your concealers – again I use my fingers for this but you can use a brush if you feel more comfortable, just make sure you have a flat synthetic one. Trish McEvoy brushes are the best on the market; brush 66 is the best concealer brush I have ever used. You can buy it individually on counter or they have the most perfect brush kit available for this holiday season. The best concealers, in my opinion, are from Laura Mercier or Nars. They have the best coverage yet feel light on your skin. I love the concealer pots; you have more control of the creamy texture than if you’re using a liquid. But go into the counter and play with the textures to find one that suits you.
A good lip liner is a must – as we get older, we lose volume in our lips. A good liner in a shade that is as close to your lip colour as possible is worth its weight in gold. I always start lining lips at the cupids bow: there is no hard rule here, I just want this to be the area with most product and we tend to be heavier handed when we start drawing a line. Use your natural lip line as a guide and follow it around the whole lip. When you have fully lined your lips fill in the full lip with the liner, if your lipstick wears off later you won’t have embarrassing liner gate to deal with. If you have lost significant volume in your lips you can over-draw them to add fullness but be super careful to just choose either top or bottom lip, never both, and to only outline by one width of your pencil. This will make the biggest difference and will look natural, nobody would ever know that you have done it. Every single make-up brand have great natural lip liner colours, from the super expensive to incredibly affordable: one of my favourites is from Note cosmetics, an affordable brand with products feeling and performing like those of a much higher price point. Then apply your lipstick as normal.
Finally when it comes to eye make-up, try and avoid black shadows and pencils (apart from waterline pencils). The darker the make-up, the more attention it draws and we are trying to avoid bringing attention to areas where you may have fine lines. Never do a flick liner, it is like drawing an arrow to the crows feet area. I am not saying that you can’t do a strong smouldering eye look, but use the darkest brown or even a navy rather than harsher black. I never use black shadows when working – you can achieve a great strong eye using softer tones but it will look far more modern and be as dramatic as you want. If your lashes have thinned out, try lining the inside of your lash line with a black pencil, it feels weird and is hard to do but it strengthens your lashline and makes eyelashes look fuller. Use a waterproof liner to be sure it doesn’t come off.
In the past few years brows have become big business, with HD Brows starting the trend and now you can have your brows microbladed on, a semi-permanent tattoo like service that draws individual hairs onto your brow area. I have mixed thoughts about these. I have seen some incredible work, mostly by Kim O’Sullivan at The Dublin Makeup Academy. But I have also seen some terrible work. Where brows end up being the main focus of the face, they shouldn’t ever be black, unless you have very deep skin tones and black hair. Microblading is really magical if you have lost your eyebrows due to medication or over plucking, but be sure to go to a practitioner that is great. If you have hair on your brows just get them tinted and shaped. This will make the biggest difference – although you will have to go every 4-6 weeks, it is the best option in my opinion.
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