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As you grow older, foundation is one of the best beauty tools you can use to hide your age and help you to appear younger and fresh faced. However, while foundation can do wonders for smoothing out your appearance, there is one mistake you could make that will actually cause you to look older than you are, emphasizing the wrong features and doing no justice to your complexion. Naturally you want your makeup to help you look your best, so this is the one thing makeup artists recommend avoiding if you want your foundation to enhance your appearance rather than hinder it.
When it comes to choosing a foundation, consistency is key. No, we don’t mean how often you wear the product, but the formula of the foundation itself. If you’ve begun to show signs of aging, your skin may reveal some fine lines and wrinkles. Picking a foundation with a matte finish can actually end up settling into those lines, causing them to appear more prominent and aging you further.
“Matte foundations suck the life out of anybody's skins. It clings to the skin, and with mature skin means fine lines and wrinkles. It ages you by highlighting those areas and makes them more visible,” explains Bay Area based makeup artist Karina Rich. “Another area with a high probability of showing age is the under eyes and around the eyes. With my mature clients, I mainly focus the product on the center of the face and those areas using even less product. The more product, the more it will fall into these areas.”
Finding a hydrating or ‘dewy’ finish foundation is going to smooth across the surface of your skin more effortlessly, enhancing your youthful glow instead of caking onto your complexion and settling into fine lines and wrinkles. Rich explains that a dewier foundation will also appear more natural, creating that “no makeup” makeup look that has become so popular in recent years. That’s not to say you can’t opt for a high coverage formula--just make sure it hydrates too.
Foundation is a staple in most makeup bags, and for good reason. However, especially as you age it’s important to ensure that you’re choosing makeup which will enhance your natural beauty instead of accidentally drawing attention to the areas you’re trying to hide. For concealing fine lines and wrinkles, a dewy finish foundation will be your best bet for bringing out your natural glow without looking overdone.
