Month: January 2025

After I joined the 50+ group, I noticed one day (seemingly out of the blue) that my makeup wasn’t cutting it anymore. My foundation looked cakey and grabbed onto my previously oily skin, my eyeliner ran, and my shadow didn’t last and didn’t blend well.

At first, I blamed it on my changing skin. Menopause. Aging. And then I realized, it wasn’t me, it was the makeup products I was using. (You know, the ones for 25-year-olds?) If you’ve experienced something similar, you just need to learn how to choose the best makeup products for your skin. Not the skin you used to have.

Wearing the right makeup products can help you love what you see in the mirror. And makeup is a great tool to help build or keep your confidence as you pass 50, 60 70, or 80!

Prioritize Hydrating Formulas

First things first, you need to address that your skin is NOT the same as it was in your 20s. Or even your 40s. After menopause, our skin tends to become drier and less elastic. We have lines, dark circles, and texture issues we want to disguise, but without looking like a crepey mess. So, start by making sure you are moisturizing well before you start any makeup. Check out my list of best moisturizers for mature skin for suggestions and the products I use.

What to look for in foundation, concealers, and primers?

• Look for labeling with terms like hydrating, dewy or moisturizing.
• Hyaluronic acid – This is my top ingredient for aging skin. It attracts 1000 times its weight in water, helping to plump up lines and wrinkles and keeping the skin barrier healthy.
• Avoid matte anything. Such products are drying by nature, and some of them even absorb oils out of your skin. Not what we need at this stage of life!

Foundation – Opt for Lightweight Coverage

I know, I get it. You want to cover what you see on your face as imperfections. Your lines, your veins, your sun damage. But as we age, we have to find a balance. Your skin will look much healthier and more youthful (despite any lines) if you use lightweight products. Heavy coverage tends to grab and look cakey. Those products settle into wrinkles and actually make them more obvious, not less. Translated, not fresh and youthful.

So, what to choose?

• Choose CC creams, tinted moisturizers, or lightweight foundations to create an airbrushed look. You can check out my picks for the best foundations for mature skin and see which ones I love!
• Use a damp beauty sponge to apply your foundation. You will get a more natural, airbrushed look rather than applying it with your fingers. You can always add another light layer to areas that need a bit more coverage.

Choose Neutral and Soft Tones for Eyes

When choosing makeup for your eyes, think subtle. I know many beauty experts recommend cream shadow for dry, aging skin, but I disagree. Cream shadow tends to crease by day’s end. Not a good look. It also isn’t very blendable, and aging eyes more than others could benefit from some easy shading to help hide a hooded lid. That is way easier with a quality powder eyeshadow.

Yes

• Matte or satin shadows in soft browns, taupes, and warm neutrals.
• Use shadow as eyeliner for a softer look.
• Subtle shimmer is great on the lid for making the eye look bigger.

No

• Cream shadows that don’t blend.
• Harsh liquid eyeliner.
• Black eyeliner.
• Cheap or loose eyeshadows that drop powder all over your face and onto your lines.

Pick Products That Enhance, Not Mask

This goes back to what I mentioned about choosing lightweight foundation, but it applies to all your makeup products.

• Choose concealer made for women in our age group and apply with a light hand.
• Don’t wear dark lipstick. Choose fresh colors with a bit of shine or gloss.
• Wear quality mascara that lengthens your lashes but does not leave clumps. (No one looks good with spider eyes!)
• Apply neutral blush for a subtle lift, no more dark blush in the hollows of your cheeks from 1985.

Focus on Skincare-Infused Makeup

The more makeup products you layer on your skin, the bigger the chance that you will get a cakey look in the end. So, choose double duty prodcuts that combine foundation and SPF, or mousturizer and SPF. Mousturizer and tint. You get the idea.

Test Before You Buy

Here is the thing… Every woman’s skin is different, no matter what her age. If you want to try a new product, try these tips to save you money. (And aggravation!)

• Get recommendations from a social media personality or a company you trust and start there.
• Let someone at a makeup counter help you find the right shades. That having been said, go with your gut. They aren’t always right.
• See if you can get a test to take home, or start with a travel size.
• Only buy from stores with a great return policy. The two largest beauty stores in the U.S. accept returns if you try a product and it doesn’t work for you.

Remember, if you aren’t happy with the way your makeup looks as you age, make sure you are using the right products. The right makeup feels good, looks natural, and helps you shine at every age. Use makeup to make you feel confident and self-assured, not to make you look like someone else, or take you back to another time. Be proud of where and who you are, right now!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What changes have you noticed in your makeup after 60? Have you changed the products you use to ones that suit you better at this stage in your life? Which products did you have to change?

We have bad news for you, La Croix.

Over the last decade or so, memoir has grown into one of the most popular reading genres. But the truth is, personal stories have been part of the human DNA for a very long time. We have been telling our tales to each other for centuries. But in modern times, more and more of us are taking on the task of writing our own personal narrative. And why not? We all have stories to tell.

The Memoir Boom

In the age of social media and blogging, revealing ourselves to the world has become a daily habit. It seems, as a society we are less and less intimidated by opening our hearts to share our most treasured experiences, and sometimes our biggest heartbreaks. Telling our stories has never been a more culturally popular, even significant thing to do.

A few years ago, the National Association of Memoir Writers came into being. It was inevitable, it seemed, because so many of us have wanted to learn how to write our stories, especially for those growing older.

Linda Joy Myers is the woman behind the association. She believes memoir is a very human act that can leave a legacy, heal a difficult past, and even offer “revived faith in the human condition.” And this may be especially true when the years remaining are fewer than the years that have passed.

Your Story Doesn’t Have to Be Fantastical

I teach memoir classes, and many students wonder aloud about whether their subjects, their themes, their stories are too mundane. “I don’t have anything interesting to write about,” one student said to me not long ago.

Nonsense.

Students invariably believe that memoir or a personal essay must be about some grand moment – climbing Mt. Everest, sailing the world’s seas, overcoming a major tragedy, enduring a devastating illness. These themes can be compelling, but many times the smallest of things make the biggest impression.

Personal narrative, when it makes the most impact, is many times about a tiny observation. The smell of lilacs. The autumn leaves on the ground. The morning snowfall. A quiet prayer. A walk in the woods.

To write a personal story, one does not have to write an entire book. Start small and remember that connecting with the reader is about sharing experiences that we all can relate to – a memorable holiday, a difficult loss, a frightening medical incident, a child’s first birthday. All of us can find a story in themes like these.

Small Moments Tell the Big Story

Years ago, I was privileged to spend three months as the Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project in Florida. I often sat on the home’s front porch in the late afternoon, and nearly every day I had a visitor. A green anole, a cousin of the iguana. I named it Chuck. It came out to greet me regularly.

I could have written about so much more – bigger, deeper subjects – while I was there. There were plenty. I was living in a legend’s old home, where he had written one of his masterpieces, The Dharma Bums. But instead, it was a small thing – that little green lizard – that intrigued me. And so, I wrote a short personal essay about Chuck, about the conversations the two of us had, about Florida in the summer, about community, the creative life, about solitude. Chuck was my jumping off point for so much.

The key is to remember that the small story is what delivers the biggest impact when you find the connection between your personal moment and the bigger human condition.

The story of an individual’s very human experience is valuable and worthy. And it can be taken to the level of true art, but only when the writing goes beyond the self, beyond navel-gazing, and connects to what we all share as human beings – our fears, our delights, our sorrows, and our joys.

Your Story Is Important

It’s necessary to tirelessly encourage the writing of personal stories, of individual observations, of one’s singular reality because it is essential. We need these stories to feed our souls. They are crucial. Humans have been telling stories to each other since the caveman days, since gathering around campfires. It is what we do.

The stories that reveal our inner lives are acts of grace, like tiny prayers that connect us to the divine. The stories spur understanding, kindness, tolerance, no matter how long ago they took place, no matter how tragic or how joyful they may be. We do not survive without human connection, and telling our stories is not only fundamental to our existence, but also vital.

The poet W.B. Yeats is believed to have said, “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” Whether the quote is attributed correctly or not, it is certainly something Yeats would have undoubtedly believed in. And for all of us writing personal narratives or hoping to, we should never allow our senses to grow dull for they are the receptors of the world around us, the first responders to our personal observations. Sharpen your senses and write what they reveal to you, because what you have to say is magic.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you have the habit of writing down personal stories? Are they major events or deeper thoughts? Do you write for yourself or to leave a legacy?

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