Makeup School: Day 12 - Mature Age (50+)

Whee, I'm finally back from a whole week of holidaying in Whitsundays and it's been absolutely wonderful! Head over to my personal blog to check out the pics of me disturbing wildlife, jet skiing and doggy paddling in the sea. Yeah, it was pretty damn awesome. Holiday tip for those who want to go there themselves: Definitely buggy around Hamilton Island and frolic on Whitehaven Beach!

Now, onto makeup...

With application on mature ladies, less is definitely more! As we age, the skin loses its elasticity, becomes drier, thiner, more papery and wrinkled. There may also be discolourations with liver spots and rosacea.

The focus of makeup on older women will be on enhancing their best features and concealing blemishes on the skin. It's not purposely making them look younger, but by smoothing out the discolouration and brightening their tone through neutral makeup, this will achieve a subtle youthfulness.

Bringing out the best:

Mature-age makeup on Jan
(not retouched!)

Prime eyes over eye area. The skin may be fairly loose so don't be afraid to but a finger on the brows and lift up and out. It will be very easy to get creases so it may be necessary to ask the model to blink freely during the next step
Mature skin tends to be dry so I would apply a layer of moisturiser and let it absorb while working on the eyes
Wash a neutral, matte colour over the entire eyelid and blend up and out just over sockets. No shimmers or pearlised eye shadows as this will emphasise all the wrinkles and folds!
Use brown eyeliner to define eyes and lightly smudge
Much of the time spent on mature skin is in concealing blemishes and smoothing the skin tone. Refer to my previous post on Concealer Magic to apply colour theory on concealing discolourations. Dab them on lightly as you can always build up additional layers
Foundation is applied over concealer. I've actually gotten used to applying it underneath, but with older skin, it's better to use foundation to smooth out the rainbow of concealers you'd may have just applied
I like to do brows after foundation just so they aren't covered up. Brows should be darkened/thickened and defined naturally
A subtle blush is applied on the apples of the cheeks and dragged out towards temples. This creates lift and gives a refreshed look.
Lips are lined and filled in with a neutral pencil under a layer of lipstick and a slick of gloss on top

It's such a shame I didn't manage to get a 'before pic' for comparison, but I was actually lucky to get any pics at all. I had to chase Jan (my model) down for a quick snap while she was waiting for the lift. I'm very very pleased with how Jan looked in the end. She originally had redness on the nose and surrounding areas, with an abundance of freckles. It was very much a challenge to smooth out her face while trying not to cover all her freckles in order to blend into her neck and décolletage.

I would love to be able to do more mature age makeups but in reality, opportunity would probably only come from doing mother-of-the-bride.

Next lesson: Oriental makeup. Something I'm quite interested in this myself!

xxEva