14 Exclusive Makeup Tips for Older Women from a Professional Makeup Artist

When I first met Ariane Poole several years ago, I knew that she had an empowering message to share with our community. Her emphasis on positive aging was refreshing and her practical makeup tips were exactly what our community had been asking for.

Who Is Ariane Poole?

Ariane Poole is a celebrity makeup artist. She has worked with women of all ages, helping them to discover makeup and use smart techniques to look and feel their best. She is passionately focused on positive aging, not anti-aging.

Ariane believes that contemporary makeup formulations and techniques can be used to highlight your best features and manage any small areas that you feel need a little enhancing!

Start with Healthy Skin

Ariane says that cleansing, exfoliating and protecting your skin is essential to getting the look that you want at any age. Keeping your skin healthy also gives you a good foundation to work with as you apply your makeup.

She points out that you can spend all the money in the world on expensive foundation, eyeshadow, and concealer, but they will be useless unless you keep your skin healthy. This is especially true as we age.

Read 6 HEALTHY SKIN CARE TIPS FOR OLDER WOMEN.

Here Are Ariane’s Top 14 Beauty Tips for Older Women

Ariane has developed these simple techniques during her years of experience and says they are perfect for us, mature women.

#1: Use Primer

Primer evens out the skin and holds lighter weight foundations in place. Consider a tinted primer which gives the benefits of a primer, moisturizer, and foundation all in one.

Lancôme La Base Pro Perfecting and Smoothing Makeup Primer is an oil-free face primer that absorbs quickly, leaving skin looking blurred and softened. 

Bare Minerals PRIME TIME® HYDRATE & GLOW PRIMER plumps skin’s hydration, boosts glow, and evens skin tone.

#2: Use Lighter Weight Foundation

Don’t use heavy cream foundations or powders that create an unnatural mask. Instead, use a lightweight luminous formulation that will create a more natural look.

Read BEST FOUNDATION OPTIONS FOR MATURE SKIN.

Simply Ageless +Olay Liquid Foundation is where Covergirl meets Olay. This moisturizer and Vitamin C infused foundation evens out your skin tone. Hyaluronic acid delivers firming hydration.

#3: Use a Foundation Brush

Apply foundation with a brush instead of a sponge. It will give you better coverage and longer-lasting results.

Wonder Cover Complexion Brush is a foundation brush from EcoTools that works great with liquid and cream foundations.

#4: Apply Concealer After Your Foundation

If you are a foundation person, always apply concealer after foundation rather than before. This way you can place it exactly where you need it, and you’ll use less product. It also looks much more natural.

Read 8 BEST CONCEALERS FOR MATURE SKIN.

#5: Put Concealer in the Right Place

Apply concealer on the top of the cheekbone, not right under the eye. This allows the light to reflect back up to hide any dark circles that you may have. Look straight ahead into a mirror. Now tip your chin down and look into the mirror. This will emphasize the dark circle and help to apply concealer in the right place.

#6: Go Darker with Concealer

When trying to deemphasize age spots, apply a slightly darker shade of concealer than you think you need. Remember that putting light concealer on a dark spot doesn’t work and will make it look ashy.

Read 7 BEST ALL NATURAL CONCEALERS FOR AGING SKIN.

#7: Mix Concealer Shades to Cover Pigmentation

After you have applied your favorite foundation, mix a combination of shades from a concealer palette, like this Graftobian HD Glamour Creme Palette, to match your natural skin tone. Apply it only to the areas that need extra coverage.

#8: Use This Trick to Shape Natural Brows

Brush your eyebrows down, draw a light line along the top of the brow line and then brush the brows up again. The Estée Lauder Brow Multi-Tasker is a great tool for this job.

Read EVERYTHING EYEBROWS! HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT EYEBROW FOR MATURE WOMEN (VIDEO)

#9: Use a “Cream to Powder” Eyeshadow

Apply a long-lasting “cream to powder” eyeshadow on the lid. Do not extend the color beyond the end of the eye because this can make your face look tired and accentuates jowls.

PRO LONGWEAR PAINT POT by MAC comes in several natural colors and can be worn solo or combined with complementary shades. As the name suggests, it is designed to stay put all day without creasing.

Read 9 BEST EYESHADOWS FOR OLDER SKIN.

#10: Choose the Right Mascara

Since we want our lashes to look full and lush, avoid lengthening and curling mascaras and choose a thickening formula.

Read our Best Mascaras for Older Women article to find your next favorite mascara.

Also read 7 BEST NATURAL MASCARAS FOR OLDER WOMEN.

#11: Try Navy Blue

Use eyeliner and mascara in a navy blue color instead of black in order to make your eyes look whiter.

Great Lash® Royal Blue Washable Mascara from Maybelline is a best-seller that gives a pop of color to flatter all eye colors. It’s also very affordable!

#12: Use Illuminators and Highlighter Correctly

Do not use a highlighter pen as a concealer. Instead, use it on the outer and inner corners of the eyes to light up the face and make your eyes sparkle. A great product to explore is Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat All-Over Brightening Concealer Pen.

#13: Apply Your Blush Lower

Apply cream blush, such as the Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge for Lips and Cheeks, with a brush and place it on the apple of your cheek. Smile to find the right spot. This placement is lower than you might think, but the technique gives more emphasis to the eyes and less to the wrinkles.

Read MAKE ME BLUSH! HOW TO USE CREAM BLUSH AFTER 50 TO GET A STUNNING LOOK.

#14: Make Your Lips Voluptuous

First, place a little highlighter above your lips. Then apply a natural color liner, such as the M.A.C. Lip Pencil, on the outer edge of your lip line rather than inside. This will make your lips look naturally fuller and your lipstick will stay on longer.

Read CHOOSING THE RIGHT LIPSTICK FOR OLDER WOMEN (VIDEO).

Let’s take a look at a few extra useful tips and tricks when it comes to makeup for older women. Do seasons matter? Do you need to do your eye makeup a special way if you wear glasses?

All About Seasons and Makeup

Summer Makeup Tips

You might want to switch your heavier foundation to a CC cream in the hotter months. CC creams have quite good coverage. They provide better coverage than tinted moisturizers, but they’re more lightweight than a foundation. So, in the summer months, this can be something to look for.

If you are looking for more coverage, add some concealer in the areas you need, for example, age spots.

You can put powder just in the t-zone where you get a little shiny, not all over your face. You don’t want to look too matte in summer because of how the sun hits your face – it doesn’t work very well.

Too shiny? Try a shine-absorbing sheet, available in most pharmacies and drug stores.

Want to achieve a Faux Summer Glow? We all know the risks of getting too much sun, but that doesn’t mean we have to forfeit that radiant glow. Applying non-metallic bronzers such as Bobbi Brown Bronzers or Christian Dior Bronzers with a large brush around our hairline, jawline, across our cheekbones, and down our necks will create a fresh, contoured look that isn’t harmful to our skin.

Hay Fever, Seasonal Allergies, and Makeup

During the hay fever season, try to keep your eye makeup simple. For example, use one simple eye shadow. Use a waterproof liner, if you’re going to use one. Try not using anything underneath – if you can get away with it.

Water-proof mascara is a savior during this time of the year. You may only use it for a few months of the year, but it can make a big difference! This is one of my favorite makeup tips for older women.

Use a white pencil on the inside of your eyes if they are irritated, to camouflage the redness. White pencils are ophthalmologically tested and won’t additionally irritate your eyes. However, be careful to use one that is a creamy white, not a blue-white. The blue-white ones tend to look like Tipp-Ex. One great product is the NYX Professional Makeup Faux Whites Creamy Eyeliner Pencil.

Fall/Winter Makeup Tips

Autumn and winter are seasons filled with change – changing weather, changing the clocks, even changing over to a new year! That makes this the perfect time of year to change up your makeup routine and try out some fun fall trends. Try darker shades on your eyes and lips. Green and navy eye shadows suit all eye colors. A great palette for this season is Tarte’s maneater™ nightfall eyeshadow palette.

Spring Makeup Tips

The perfect, fresh look for spring includes splashes of color in your makeup kit. Ariane suggests combining intense shades with softer, more subtle hues, such as the ones in the Urban Decay Naked Wild West Eyeshadow Palette, to create a look that pops with your personality and your skin tone.

Makeup and Glasses

It’s good to remember that if you’re nearsighted, your lens prescription can have a shrinking effect on your eyes. In this case, you want to do as much as possible to open up your eyes and make them look larger.

If you’re far-sighted, your prescription can often magnify your eyes thus pulling focus from the rest of your face. Hence, it’s important to ‘balance’ your face makeup. One way to do this is to consider wearing slightly brighter or bolder lip color, such as the Cream Lip Stain Liquid Lipstick from the SEPHORA COLLECTION.

Since wearing glasses changes how others perceive the depth and dimension of your eyes, use a darker color in your crease – and slightly above your crease if you have hooded eyes – to add more dimension.

Note: A key to many makeup techniques for women 60+ is to work against gravity by applying eye shadow, liner, and blush in an upward sweep.

Read 12 BEST EYEGLASS FRAMES FOR WOMEN OVER 50.

Balance Your Eyebrows with Your Frames

Give your face more dimension by making sure your eyebrows ‘fit’ with the look of your frames. If your frames are thick and bold, consider keeping your eyebrows more neutral, simply fill in any sparse areas with eyebrow powder, pencil, or pomade. A brow powder, such as Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo, is a wonderful fill-in product.

You can give more emphasis to your eyebrows if you wear plain or rimless frames. Always keep your eyebrows well-groomed, even if your frames cover them.

Using an eyelash curler to curl your lashes not only prevents them from brushing against your lenses, but it also lifts your lashes to allow more light to reach your eyes and make them look larger. A product to look into is the Shiseido Eyelash Curler.

That’s it! 14 simple tips to improve your makeup and beauty regime. Armed with this list, you can update your technique and make the best of the new products. Have fun experimenting with makeup and achieving a natural, fresh, and positive appearance.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Which of these makeup tips did you find most useful? Which one surprised you? What one question would you like to ask Ariane regarding how to get the most from your makeup? Please join the conversation!