Lips play a significant role in framing the face, and choosing the right lipstick can enhance their natural beauty, especially for aging women. As we age, lips may lose volume and definition, making color choice even more important. Certain lipstick shades can even make lips appear thinner and the face look washed out. On the other hand, carefully selected shades can restore vibrancy, add dimension, and create a youthful, fuller look.
We checked in with Kerrin Jackson, a four-time Emmy-nominated makeup artist and creator of the blog The Makeup Refinery, to give us some simple tips on the most unflattering lipstick colors for mature ladies. She broke them down according to skin tones to help us better understand the colors we should avoid and the shades we should opt for instead. Read on to get all her insights.
For Light Skin Tones
According to Jackson, the most universally unflattering lipstick shade can be broken down into several categories to better understand what works and what doesn’t, all based on basic color and light theory. “Of course, there are thousands of variations within skin tones, but for the sake of brevity, I have broken it down into dark and light skin tones,” Jackson said.
For light skin tones, the most unflattering shades are very light and very dark shades, Jackson reveals. Basically, women over 40 and beyond should avoid anything that is too extreme because it washes you out.
Avoid “very light lipstick shades such as bone or skin tone shades,” Jackson said. “These tones do nothing to enhance or bring warmth to your face and can tend to make you look sickly and unwell. And when you add this to someone over 40 who may already be trying to bring a glow or youthfulness to their look, these shades are a big no!”
For Darker Skin Tones
“Applying color theory principles, the most unflattering lipstick for darker skin tones is that which is neutral or cool toned,” Jackson said. “On darker skin, these appear ashy and bring no life at all to your complexion. Again in very light bone tones or black or cool deep tones. Very dark lipsticks can give the illusion of thinning your lips as well, and this can also undo anything attempting to help you look younger.”
So what shades should older women opt for? Jackson recommends the following:
First: Determining your skin undertone is simple. Figure out if you are cool, warm, or neutral. One easy hack to discover which undertone you have is to analyze the veins on your wrist. If they appear more blue or purple, you have a cool undertone. If they look green, you have a warm undertone. A mix of blue, purple, and green indicates a neutral undertone.
Second: Select a lipstick shade that complements your undertone and adds vibrancy and warmth to your lips.
“[If your skin is] cool toned, you should look for cool-toned warmth (hard to imagine, but think plums, light berries, pink tones),” Jackson said. “If your skin has a warm undertone, you should be looking for warmer tones in your lipstick (red, peach, orange tones).”
It's important to choose the right colors at any age, but these are some tips that mature women should always follow to enhance their glow and shed years off their face instead of adding years!
