How to sculpt a mid-life face — no knife or filler required

Barely had we finished gazing at Madonna’s apparent overload of facial filler, than the world and his wife seem to be obsessing about its prevalence in us ‘civilians’.

a report from the U.S. headlined: ‘The Big Dissolve: They blew out their faces. Now they’re melting them down’ describes how — from around 2016 — armies of americans strove to look like so many ‘sexy babies’, deploying hyaluronic acid and fat injections to create ‘heartshaped faces, teeny-tiny noses, and full, puffy lips and cheeks’.

Only, seven years on, the prevailing aesthetic has shifted and the fashionable face has morphed from youthfully pillowy to skeletally ‘snatched’, as it is known.

as a result, legions of chipmunkcheeked women are spending thousands to have their filler dissolved via injections of the enzyme hyaluronidase.

Meanwhile, the hot new procedure is buccal-fat removal, the face-sculpting vogue whereby fat pads deep in the cheeks are removed to give a more chiselled guise.

HOwever, given that the modish mug has gone from one extreme to another in less than a decade, why would any of us risk something so permanent?

especially given that, as it is, one can easily look rather too skeletal in midlife, in terms of facial hollowing.

Instead, the answer will be a little light contouring.

Here I am very much not talking about the old-school, glam-bot, geometrical mask trowelled on by Kim Kardashian and her ilk.

Instead, think the subtle shaping achieved by midlife make-up artist ali andreea in her recent youTube guide.

even then then, bear in mind that andreea is a professional, with a perfectionist zeal.

For the rest of us, sculpting may demand little more than a diagonal line under each cheekbone that one blends with one’s blusher, plus a bijou crescent of illumination — or highlighter — on top.

Selena Gomez’s rare Beauty Positive light Silky Touch Highlighter (£24, spacenk.com) makes a winning half-moon: four shades of a natural-looking sheen that double as an eye shadow.

But remember not to veer too low with your diagonals, or you will drag your features down.

ali favours westman atelier’s creamy Face Trace Contour Stick (£35, west man atelier. com ), in three hues that include Ganache — a gorgeous espresso for black skins.

Her other great love is Fenty Beauty’s Match Stix Matte Skinstick (£23, boots.com).

Taken with rihanna’s Match Stix Shimmer Skinstick, there are 20 shades to conceal, brighten, contour and highlight.

To go this nuanced, you’re going to need a bit of experience. If you’re new to face shaping, invest in Kiko’s Sculpting Touch Creamy Stick Contour (£10.99, kikocosmetics.com) to get your eye in and see whether the habit lasts.

Many favour these two matte neutrals over the genre’s costlier classics.

In my own case, I detest any tan addition to the face, which — given my skin’s blue undertones — means I use Byredo Colour Stick in Purple Stinger (£28, libertylondon.com), a sheer mauve.

I add blush, blend, then apply a reverse contour by blending in a diagonal of Chantecaille real Skin+ eye and Face Stick (£60, libertylondon.com) up underneath it all.

The result? Contours and curves that make you look elegant and attractive, rather than engorged or atrophied.