I kept seeing this ad for some beauty line with the caption “Ten makeup tips for women over fifty.” I guess the internet has nailed my demographic, if not my style, which is best described as “not applicable.” If I were giving the tip, it would be “Just march on out there with what God gave you and give it a go,” but that didn’t even make the top ten. The person providing the tips is a stunning 64-year-old woman who needs makeup like a jellyfish needs stretch pants. When she dies people are going to want to dig her up for one last look. Nevertheless, it’s makeup she’s selling. I don’t know how much of her product you’d need to buy to look like her, but I do know you’d also need joint compound, a sander, and Leonardo da Vinci in your contacts list.
To her credit, though, she thinks you don’t need much makeup. At your age, Petunia, less is more. Which is great, because you can’t get any more less than I have. “Don’t overdo it,” she cautions. “After age fifty, your face is not a blank slate anymore.” Boy howdy and ain’t it the truth! Nothing blank about it. It’s got some wear to it. She says she let herself go gray at age 45. I haven’t worn makeup since I was sixteen, so that’s about when I started letting myself go gray, also. It took another thirty years.
Oh, and this one other time. |
Anyway, she warns against using any kind of powdered foundation because, as she delicately puts it, you don’t want “unwanted extra texture.” The implication is that at this point you’ve started to accumulate some personal texture of your own that you might not want to draw attention to. Sweet baby Moses in a sunhat, I’ll say! It’s a freakin’ moonscape, innit? I’ve got stuff growing out of my face that was never on the original work order, but there it is. I’m counting on most of it not being cancerous.
So you sure don’t want to use any kind of powder. That just settles in drifts in your personal arroyos whilst tiny tumbleweeds of talc drift about and collect in the beard zone. What she’d like you to use instead is something more like lipstick, but for all over. “Is there a woman who hasn’t dabbed a little lipstick on her cheeks for a quick touch-up?” Why, yes, there is. There’s at least one who never dabbed any on her lips, either. One time when I was too young to have money to buy makeup and was most certainly not going to get any past the parents anyway, I put a little baby powder on my lips, because we were going through that fashion nanosecond when white lips were cool. It tasted weird and I gave it up. I couldn’t afford the go-go boots either.
Oh wait–I also tried someone’s red lipstick on a dare, just that one time, and wiped it off in nearly the same instant. I was going for an Ingrid Bergman look but the effect was more like a stab wound.
Still, the concept here is that you get a few items for your Kit–you get to have a Kit!–that come in big wide tubes and you goo it on yourself. Kind of all over. You’re not supposed to put on MUCH makeup in any one spot, but there’s no limit to the territory you can cover. The champagne-colored one, for instance, is meant to go in the inner corner of your eyes, your cheekbones, your shoulders, and your decollete. I know what that is. That would be your boobular region, and I’m not up for chasing that around with a stick of goo. It would be one thing if we still wore those 18th-century gowns that mash everything up above the bodice where you can reach it.
I have a different plan for my decollete. That fine-sand beach got covered with riprap decades ago, and I plan to keep it covered the hell up.
There’s more. Eyeshadow: it should be a shade lighter than your skin tone. But our friend has an even more daring proposition. “If you can,” says she, “even try going eyeshadow-free!” Way ahead of you, babycakes.
But the biggest mistake old women make is to use too much under-eye concealer. I never heard of under-eye concealer. Sounds handy.
Most of me is under my eyes.
"Just march on out there with what God gave you and give it a go". I've been doing that forever with three exceptions: my wedding, a Christmas dinner we got invited to and my daughter's wedding. I really prefer the bare-faced look. But there's another makeup opportunity looming, my grand daughter's wedding next summer.
Hey, there's plenty of evidence God could use some help sometimes.
It all sounds so very tasteful, don'cha think?
It sounds a little slimy to me.
Thought I'd have a bleary-eyed look at Blogger this morning while I caffeinated my over-fifty self in an attempt to wake up. Well, that was only working slowly. It took reading this to get me truly, chortling-out-loud, falling-off-my-chair awake! And, as gorgeous as she is, (I think Leonardo must have been present at her birth)I think you have the soundest beauty tip 'cause what's better than being able to laugh about the declines in the boobular region, the beard zone and the personal arroyos?
Not only that, but my body gets more comedic every year.
Most of me is under my eyes too!!!
Love this post!
Thanks!
At some point between the ages of 16 and 20 I succumbed to my overwhelming laziness plus the era of the hippie and gave up make-up; even thinking about changing my hair color; shaving; ladylike shoes, etc. etc. etc. I have made the occasional and mercifully rare exception for weddings (although, not my own – but I did wear a dress!) and a few "galas" here and there, but I'm basically just taking a nope approach to the whole girly-girl thing.
The only drawback is now I do have a few outfits I'd like to wear but I don't have any shoes for them. So they remain unworn.
Oh, c'mon. Birks go with everything, right? I hope.
Well, they go with everything as well as they go with everything else.
OK. That makes my brain hurt…
How come men don't have to worry about the "proper" makeup?
Some of them probably should.
That 64-year-old woman? She's a prematurely-grey 50-year-old in real life, and she's using the camera angle to reduce her "chinular assets"… or so I tell myself!
I had a makeup/makeover done when I was 23 and realized that very day that nothing was going to change my basic facial structure and I opted for a goo-free life. It's been a lot more comfortable that way. And dare I say, honest as well. I've witnessed a video where an old woman was transformed into a youngster. But wouldn't it be a tad depressing to take that makeup off at the end of the day??
This is one of those things I had a suspicion about even when I was young. That if I started using makeup, I'd look like shit without it. And you can't wear it all the time. I'd rather look like shit first thing in the morning and own the look.
I have more important things to spend my meagre coin on.
Besides, there's something sadly unattractive about a painted face dissolving in runnels of sweat…
There's something sad about the runnels of sweat. I would not want to trade climates with you! Although, all bets are off on that account.
No make-up here. None, nada, zip.
I am pretty certain that my shaky hands would make an application more miss than hit as well.
I have earned my canyons. And grey hair.
Let's get us some tiny burros and go exploring!
I wore makeup when I was 22 and didn't need it. Then I had a child (no connection to the makeup or at least not much) and that was pretty much the end of makeup. Forever. I slap on some sunscreen/moisturizer every once in a while, and I even dab on lipstick occasionally. The lipstick effort is wasted; it disappears before I'm out of the house.
I just hate putting on that sunscreen. But I do it anyway because I'm afraid of my dermatologist. When it's summer. And hot. If I think about it.
As the offspring of a woman who would not go out of the house without "putting her face on," as she called it, I've always preferred to be make-up free and boy am I glad. I've earned every line, crevice, gray hair. When I smile or laugh, I hide nothing.
I tried to hide my chin for a while but it became too labor-intensive.
Just think of how much money we'd all save if women weren't pressured to still make themselves attractive to men who are pressured to take pharmaceuticals so Willy can still play like a 20-year old. Not my idea of aging gracefully!
At this point I don't even aspire to "attractive," but I'll settle for "not repellent." Eventually I'll have to get over that too.
LOL, Murr – I'm thinking the same thing lately (for me)
You must be the Natural Woman that Aretha was singing about. There is so much history in a face that it would be a shame to hide it from everyone.
Well, sometimes she makes me feel like one.
No makeup, lots of grey, more than a couple extra pounds.
Happily being myself.
If you don't like it, I don't care. I really just don't care.
Pisses my mom off to no end. "I just couldn't be happy if I weighed what you do." Or, "I don't want people to think I'm the kind of person who doesn't care about her face."
"Hey mom, wanna see my hairy pits?"
"How did you get to be that way?!!"
Oh dear! It sounds like she just couldn't be happy! I hope there's an upside to this relationship. I miss my mom. She did gently hint I could use some deodorant once, but that's about as far as it went.
I am guilty of using the concealer under my eyes. It stops people from asking if I am ill.
Or, "You look tired."
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