Mastering the art of contouring can be a game-changing makeup technique that can enhance your facial features without the need for invasive surgical procedures.
It involves highlighting your best assets such as cheekbones, eyes, jawline, and more, which can yield successful results regardless of age.
We checked in with beauty blogger and makeup coach Casie Paterson to learn more about four essential tips and hacks to keep in mind when contouring over 50, and how they can take years off your look.
Contour Hack #1. Draw The Eye Upwards With Blush
Contouring, Paterson explains, is all about lifting up and using multiple tools in an upward direction. Firstly, she suggests to “use your contour cream or powder and work it upwards, just underneath your cheekbones for a sculpted and lifted look.”
Blush can also become your best friend when used in a similar manner. “Don’t place blush on the apples of your cheeks,” she advises. “Instead place blush on the high points of your cheekbones and blend into your contour.”
#2. Extend The Tails Of Your Eyeliner & Brows
Your other makeup tools, she adds, can work together to lift your face including eyeliner. “Use a lifting eyeliner technique to draw the eyes upwards.
With your eyeliner or eyeshadow, extend the tail upwards,” she stresses. With your eyebrows, Paterson notes to “create a higher eyebrow arch which helps to lift and open up the eyes.”
3. Use A Transitional Eyeshadow Shade
Other ways to draw eyes up and away from any drooping or sagging skin, she says, involve eyeshadow and mascara. “Create the illusion of an eyelid crease by placing a transition eyeshadow shade—which is 2 shades deeper than your skin tone—where your crease would be.”
This, she says, “opens your eyes and camouflages” droopy eyelids. Using a volumizing mascara or “lash extensions/ a natural looking false lash” can also help to open the eyes, as drawing attention to them is often a major goal when it comes to contouring.
4. Add Concealer With 3 Strategic Dots
Celebrity makeup artist Mary Phillips recently shared an instructional Instagram video for her sizable 2.2 million following. The video goes over the technique of putting three well-placed spots of concealer to attain a facelift-like or eye-lifting result.
Phillips explains that the first dot should be applied beside your nose and blended with a beauty blender, then the second one should go to the inner corner of the eye and the third should go to the outer corner.
These steps, as Phillips points out, can quickly bring life to your skin if it looks worn out or saggy. In her July 2023 viral video, Phillips (who often creates epic makeup looks for A-listers like Kendall Jenner and Jennifer Lopez) tells viewers how to get an “instant” eye lift.
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“First, I put a dot [of concealer] at the corner of my nose and one under the inner corner of my eye and another under the outer corner of my eye. Then, I go in and blend.”
She continues: “Starting at the nose and working my way up out towards the temple. It’s a full coverage concealer and doesn’t crease and that’s it. You don’t need a ton of product. All it takes is three dots.”
The Bottom Line
Lighter makeup, Paterson says, is the way to go overall, as anyone with mature skin should “avoid heavy foundations, concealers or powders which will settle into lines and cause you to look older.”
Whether you’re drawing lines under your cheekbones to blend or creating a sharp cat-eye, what many makeup artists will say to keep in mind is that the ultimate goal is to draw the eye up rather than down as this will promote a slimmer, more lifted effect.
