Make up tips from Ariane Poole
Eyelashes, like brows, become sparse too. The tips become lighter in colour, lose volume and often become shorter. Ariane recommends mascaras with fibres in them to fatten the lashes. Maybelline Volum Express Turbo Lash is a Woman and Home favourite. If your lashes are fine and sparse, try a lash conditioner, such as Talika Lipocils Eyelash Conditioning Gel, £20. Colourwise, go for a black or navy mascara rather than brown, which can make the eye area look tired. Always curl lashes for a more open, wide-awake look.
Eyeliner helps to add definition around the eyes, and whether you choose a pencil, gel or liquid depends on how confident you feel about applying it. Always soften the effect with a cotton bud. If you have really small eyes, place eyeliner along the middle of the bottom lashes, directly under either side of the iris. Here Ariane used her own gel liner in a purple shade called Tanzanite.
If you like your browns and don’t want to give them up, give them a boost with soft lilacs and purples that brighten up the eyes and face, looking modern without looking gimmicky. Make sure you choose cool-toned purples rather than pink, which makes you look tearful.
Full, rounded cheeks. We lose pigment in our face when our hair starts to grey. Past 35, you can’t get away with beiges and bronzers as easily. Stop and re-evaluate your make-up: why isn’t it working? The reason is that we don’t blush bronze, we blush pink. Bronzer gives a warm glow to the skin and helps to contour a little, but it’s that youthful flush that’s missing.
Lip colour can be the trickiest make-up to choose because people’s lips change the colour of the lipstick once applied, plus those fashionable soft nudes tend to make those of us over 20 look washed-out, while bold colours can look over the top. The answer is to choose a sheer texture that’s clear rather than opaque. If you can’t live without your nudes, choose a pinky shade rather than beige.
Eyebrows are very important, especially as we get older. They give the eye definition, and you can give yourself an instant non-surgical facelift simply by reshaping them. With age, brows become grey or white, sparser, more wiry and coarse. The answer is either to tint them or fill them in. For filling in, I recommend brow powder because we tend to be quite heavy-handed with pencils and it’s hard to use less force.
