Who needs a facelift!
These magic make-up tricks will knock years off you – pain free
DO YOU always look tired, no matter how much sleep you get? Is gravity winning the war on your face? For many women, this is the moment they start researching dermatologists and plastic surgeons.
The answer, however, may not lie in a surgeon’s knife, but in your make-up bag. Cosmetics, applied properly, can create optical illusions that knock years off your age.
Indeed, the return of contouring may be one reason for a decline in women having cosmetic operations: demand fell 40 per cent last year.
TANITH CAREY met top make- up artist OONAGH CONNOR to learn the tricks of the trade. Here, four women show off the results on different problem areas, with pictures showing them before with no make-up and after Oonagh worked her magic . . .
HOODED EYES
REBECCA SHELTON, 47, an events director from holloway, north london.
WHY THEY HAPPEN: We lose collagen, the connective tissue that holds skin together, at a rate of 1 per cent a year after the age of 25.
Skin on the eyelids is the thinnest on the face — as little as 0.05 mm. Gravity can also cause the muscles around the eyes to lose strength.
This means the eyelids can be one of the first places to show sagging and droopiness.
HOW TO LIFT THEM: Oonagh explains that if you look at Rebecca’s unmade-up eye, it’s not only slightly hooded but its downward angle is emphasised by the drooping eyebrow above.
Oonagh says: ‘Lifting the eyebrow is the cheapest facelift there is. I used Bobbi Brown’s Perfectly Defined Long-Wear Brow Pencil in a light brown shade (£30, bobbibrown.co.uk) to thicken the top edge and give a soaring arch.
‘So when you look at Rebecca, the eye is drawn away from the sagging eyelid beneath.’
Oonagh’s next step was to flood Rebecca’s whole eye socket with light by applying a creamy, moisturising concealer with a brush. Kiko’s Universal Stick Concealer (£6.90,
kikocosmetics.com) gives a youthful glow and covers redness and discoloration.
To draw the eye up further, Oonagh built up a brown eyeshadow on Rebecca’s upper lid so there was more on the outer edge, to give it an uplifting cat eye shape. Next, she reinforced this effect by using a black eyeliner pencil to line the upper lid close to the lash line and give it an upwards flick at the outer corner.
The final touch was to apply a pale foundation (Time Frame Future Resist Foundation in the shade Lace, £34, delilahcosmetics.com) using a flat brush with long, upward sweeps from the inner corner of Rebecca’s under-eye area to her temple, and a sweep of L’Oreal True Match Concealer Crayon (£4.99, superdrug.com) under her new brow arch.
REBECCA’S VERDICT: ‘I first noticed my face ageing when I was 45. It was frustrating to watch my eyes, which people said were one of my best features, looking smaller as my eyelids sagged. Oonagh lifting my eyebrow arch raised my face instantly and was so easy to do.’
EYE BAGS AND CIRCLES
JANE WILKINSON, 51, from Worthing, West Sussex, is director of a baby products distributor.
WHY THEY HAPPEN: Fat deposits around the eyes provide protective padding. In our 40s, the skull starts to shrink, making the eye sockets widen. The membranes and ligaments that hold these fat pockets in place also weaken, so eventually, these pads start to drop and form pouches under the eyes.
Also, as skin around the eyes gets thinner, more of the underlying blood vessels show through, making the area look purple and creating dark circles.
HOW TO LIFT THEM: The trick to distract from eye bags is to create an inverted triangle of
light from underneath the eye to the dimples of the cheek, says Oonagh. She applied a lighter foundation under Jane’s eyes with a brush, evening the tone across the face.
‘Blemishes and discoloration do more to make us look older than wrinkles,’ says Oonagh. ‘A foundation with a dewy, lightreflecting quality, such as Glo-Minerals Protective Liquid Foundation Satin II (£38.95, glo-minerals.com), takes years off.’
Next, Oonagh returned the definition to Jane’s face by pressing the side of her forefinger into the side of Jane’s face to feel for the underside of her cheekbone. Then, she used a slightly darker foundation to draw a line from the dimple close to Jane’s mouth up to her temple — blending carefully.
Over time, as features sag, we can lose the youthful symmetry of our face, adds Oonagh. ‘To return this, I added a subtle stripe of highlighter (Laura Mercier Face Illuminator in Indiscretion, £32, johnlewis.com) with a powder brush down the middle of Jane’s nose to lift her face up and out.’
JANE’S VERDICT: ‘I first noticed my eye bags in my early 40s. I looked in the mirror and saw my mother’s face looking back. I felt surgery was too risky, and always thought make-up was making my eye bags look worse. Now, I’ve learned to accentuate other areas to take the focus off my bags.’
DEEP WRINKLES
TESS GUSTARD, 47, is a former tax adviser from Witham, essex.
WHY THEY HAPPEN: Over time, the malar fat pads — the fatty deposits in the cheeks around the size of half a boiled egg, which
give the face its youthful plumpness — begin to shrink and drop in the face.
At the same time, skin loses elasticity. When the skin starts to droop over the ring of muscles around the lips, this causes deep wrinkles known as marionette lines, which run from the edge of the nose to the corners of the mouth.
HOW TO LIFT THEM: One of the changes that makes Tess’s nasolabial lines more obvious is how pale her features have become with age, says Oonagh.
Over time, the colour of the complexion and lips fades as the skin cells produce less of the pigment melatonin. This makes any dark shadow much more obvious.
It’s not possible to get rid of marionette lines, but you can distract from them.
First, Oonagh applied a moisturising, dewy foundation — Bobbi Brown Foundation Stick in the shade Sand (£31, bobbibrown.
co.uk) — to even Tess’s skin tone and reflect light. Drawing two lines of concealer in her marionette lines with a L’Oreal True Match Crayon also helps to reduce shadows.
Next, Oonagh used a pinky blush (L’Oreal Paris Infallible Face Blush Trio, £7.99,
superdrug.com) high up on the cheeks to distract from the lines.
‘I asked Tess to smile,’ says Oonagh. ‘This showed me where to apply the blush in a circular movement on the apples of cheeks to raise the eye when you look at her.’
To return fullness to the lips, she subtly lined the underside of Tess’s lips and cupid’s bow with a white liner to make them ‘pop’ and give youthful definition. Finally, she dabbed lip gloss in the centre of Tess’s lips.
TESS’S VERDICT: ‘I first really noticed my marionette lines around the age of 42, and I have become very conscious of them. I have found that smiling a lot helps, but you can’t always go around grinning like an idiot!
‘Before this, I didn’t think there was anything I could do that didn’t involve aesthetic treatment. I didn’t want to go down that route, so it was great to learn some tricks to minimise problem areas and lift the face.’
SAGGY JOWLS
DAWN LOVE, 50, from West London, is director of dog-sitting firm PawzLove.
WHY THEY HAPPEN: Over time, we all lose definition around the jawline. As fat pads begin to drop, they start to pull the cheeks downwards, creating a squarer face shape.
And as the skull shrinks with age, the jaw bone slightly recedes, allowing loose skin to gather underneath it.
HOW TO LIFT THEM: To create the illusion of a taut jawline, Oonagh chose a foundation two or three shades darker than Dawn’s skin. ‘I applied it with a foundation brush in a line just under the edge of her jaw, drawing it carefully down onto the neck and blending so there were no tide-marks,’ she says.
‘Next, I took a lighter foundation and blended it along the upper edge of Dawn’s jaw to give more contrast and definition.’
To give a further lifted effect, Oonagh opened up Dawn’s hooded eyes with eyelash curlers and mascara. ‘I gently lifted up her eye lid with one finger so I could move the curlers as close as possible to the base of the lashes, making them as visible as possible.
‘Next, I used an eyelash conditioning primer base (Clinique Lash Building Primer, £14), followed by a black, lengthening mascara (Clinique High Lengths Mascara, £17.50, both boots.com) to make sure each of Dawn’s lashes worked as hard as possible. This really drew Dawn’s eyes and face up, helping to distract from her jowls.’
DAWN’S VERDICT: ‘I felt like I’d had a facelift. I’d tried diet and facial exercises, but nothing made much difference. I never realised I could make an instant change if I just used my make-up more carefully.’