You’ve seen them! Heck, you may be guilty of them yourself: makeup mishaps that instantly age you and seem to scream, “I’m wearing makeup!” Don’t let these common makeup flubs add years to your pretty face.
Harsh brows and sparse lashes
Today, it’s all about full, arched brows. Maintain groomed brows by having them shaped by a professional every other month. Celebrity makeup artist Josie Volpentesta says, “I feel that a mistake women make is plucking their eyebrow hairs all out and then drawing them in, which appears harsh and makes them look older than they are. Try a powder or a brow gel as opposed to a pencil for a more natural look. My favorite is by Anastasia Beverly Hills.”
Volpentesta also says enhancing your lashes brings out your eyes and makes you look youthful at any age. Lashes do become shorter and scarcer as we age, but that’s nothing a good mascara and eyelash can’t correct. Volpentesta recommends Benefit’s They’re Real! mascara and RevitaLash eyelash enhancer.
Wearing the wrong shade of lipstick
When it comes to finding the right lipstick, Bobbi Brown’s rule of thumb is to choose color that’s one or two shades darker than your natural lip color. When the color is too light, it can make you look like a corpse. If you have thin lips, darker colors make lips look even thinner. The right shade will awaken your face, but don’t forget to try it before you buy it. After sampling the shade, walk around with it for a bit and look at it in natural light. Finishing with a gloss concentrated at the center of your lower lip makes lips appear fuller.
Applying blush to the middle of your cheeks
Blush can brighten up your face, but applied wrong, it instantly makes you look clownish or jowly. Blush should look like a natural flush. Instead of concentrating the color in the middle of your cheeks, blend the blush right into the center of your cheekbones using an upward, circular motion. When you wear blush too low, it “pulls down your face,” and applied just at the cheeks, it looks dated. Blush should go on after you’ve applied your moisturizer, foundation or bronzer.
Using too much foundation or choosing the wrong color
The caked-on foundation look happens when you overload it or don’t moisturize beforehand. With foundation, a little goes a long way. Find the right color by testing the foundation along your jawline and on your forehead. It should blend right in with your actual skin tone. Most people have yellow undertones in their complexion, so a foundation with a yellowish cast usually looks most natural. Volpentesta suggests shying away from powder foundations, which appear dull and make skin appear less radiant.
“Nothing’s wrong with a little powder to set your foundation, but a cream foundation overall will make skin look more youthful,” she says. “Don’t forget to moisturize skin first. You can also use tinted moisturizer along your t-zone.”
When using concealer, make sure you hydrate eyes first so the concealer goes on smoothly. And, choose a concealer that is a shade lighter than your natural skin tone.
“When women wear under-eye concealer without layering it on top of eye cream, it enhances under-eye wrinkles, one of the first signs of aging,” Volpentesta says.
She recommends Algenist Complete Eye Renewal Balm and Josie Maran Argan Creamy Concealer Crayon.
Wearing sparkles
It’s fine to add a bit of bronzy shimmer to your collarbone or cheekbones with a highlighter like RMS Living Luminizer. But, sparkles and glitter, on the other hand, should be left to the teenagers. On adult women, the look appears juvenile and cheesy.
