Shaving 10 years off your age doesn't require expensive potions or going under the knife. All it takes is a few little beauty tweaks and you're well on your way to looking younger.
1. Fix your posture
As the years creep up, our bodies creep down, and the way we hold ourselves is a strong indicator of youthfulness. Good posture not only makes you look younger, taller and slimmer, it’s also a powerful life skill – the biggest cause of disability in people aged 50 and over in Australia is lower back pain, and conditioning the muscles that hold us upright is a key preventative measure.
Here’s a quick posture test: Stand tall, lift one knee thigh-high and balance on the other leg for as long as you can. This will straighten your back and activate the stabilising muscles from your feet, midriff and shoulders that are responsible for posture and balance. Aim to stand for at least 20 seconds on each side.
2. Put the rose back in your cheeks
Skin not only loses elasticity as we age, it also loses colour. Add a youthful glow by using pink hues in your make-up, rather than yellows and browns. “Look at the inside of your mouth – that’s the pink to use,” make-up stylist Helen Dowsley explains.
3. Work make-up magic
Lived-in skin can look fabulous with the right products, Dowsley says. Prime your face with a nourishing moisturiser to fill in pores and irregularities, then use a liquid foundation – powders can settle into fine lines, exaggerating their appearance – and a touch of blush for a rosy glow (see left).
To instantly take off a few more years, follow this secret stylists’ tip: Add a hint of essential oil such as rosehip to your liquid foundation to give the illusion of young, dewy skin, Dowsley says.
4. Go bold with your brows
“Bountiful brows can reshape and take years off the face,” b+s beauty expert Sherine Youssef says. If your brows are sparse, forgo tweezing for at least two months to allow as much hair as possible to grow back.
The ideal brow has a beginning and end that are in line with each other, and is a shade or two darker than the hair on your head. Like a good hairdresser, a brow specialist is well worth the money as they’ll shape and tint your brows and advise on maintenance.
5. Brighten your smile
A white smile is one of the most effective ways to look more youthful as it adds a flattering contrast to lips and skin tone. But several decades’ worth of accumulated food, drink, tobacco and bacterial teeth staining can make your face look sallow.
Brushing teeth after drinking the big culprits such as coffee, tea and red wine can help, but a dental whitening procedure can reverse years of discolouration. There are numerous procedures that cost from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand, and they all essentially do the same thing, with varying degrees of effectiveness: bleaching your teeth with a combination of peroxide and high-intensity light.
6. Give your eyes a lift
People tend to particularly show their age around their eyes, with the upper eyelids having a tendency to droop. To avoid accentuating this, hold back on heavy eye shadow and eyeliner. Instead of joining the top and bottom eyeliner on the outer edges, stop it on your top lid two or three lashes from the end. “This will give the illusion of your eye going up,” Dowsley says.
7. Update your hair routine
As we age, our hair tends to frizz and lose volume, so avoid using hair straighteners that flatten cuticles and can make older hair look lifeless and limp. “That can put on 20 years,” Dowsley says.
She recommends this routine to get the best from your tresses: Towel dry and apply a cream-type base to plump up your strands; using a round boar hairbrush, blow-dry sections making sure to close off the cuticles by finishing with cool air. Hair spray can help beat the effects of humidity. If you have fine hair, use a dry shampoo instead to make it full and wavy; simply shape your locks with your fingers and it will keep its style all day.
8. Go to new lengths
Now might be the time to consider a fresh, shorter hair style that will frame your face and work for any hair type, even curly and wavy.
If you’re conscious about forehead wrinkles, having a fringe cut is a far easier and cheaper solution than Botox. It doesn’t have to be a blunt look – a side-swept fringe will soften your features while still hiding lines.
Avoid the temptation to cover greys with too much dye; go too dark and it will strip colour from your face. Try a tone or highlights a few shades lighter than your natural hair.
9. Makeover your style
Regardless of your body shape, the most important thing about what you wear isn’t whether it’s in fashion but whether it fits you well. “That alone can take five years as well as 5kg off your look,” professional stylist Jeff Lack says.
Men tend to wear clothes that are too big for their frame, while women tend to wear clothes that are too tight. Either way, Lack adds, the results are unflattering and don’t do anyone justice. He says the best thing you can do is go shopping with someone who has an eye for fashion – a stylish friend or even a stylist – so they can steer you in the right direction.
10. Balance colours against skin tone
While black may have served you well in your 20s, 30s and 40s, navy is the new trump card for the 50+ wardrobe. “It’s much softer on the skin and tends to give you colour balance on your face,” Lack says.
Colours that are too close to your own skin tone are to be avoided if you don’t want to look washed out – think of Richie Benaud in his classic beige suit. “Those colours draw energy away from the face,” Lack says.
For men who are going grey, don’t hide it with dye – instead, make it work for you by incorporating it into your style. Get a shirt in the same colour grey as your hair and it will bring out the life in your skin as well as giving you a professional-looking style.
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