There is an artist who lives in my neighborhood named Elizabeth Sweetheart, better known as the “Green Lady of Brooklyn.” Sweetheart, now in her early 80s, earned the name because for the past 30-odd years she has dressed in green from head to toe. Literally: Her clothes and bags and shoes and even wire-rimmed glasses are all varying shades of green, as are her hair, nails, and eyeshadow. Asked in interviews, and in-person (if you’re lucky enough to cross her path—and really you can’t miss her!), she will say that the motivation for her choice to go constantly and completely green is a simple one. The color makes her happy.
As we age, society often wants to dictate what works and what doesn’t for women. Not to mention a barrage of often contradictory cultural messaging about what our aging appearance should look like—do we try to blur all signs, or do we lean into it?
Makeup plays a significant role here. “I think it’s interesting to see that your face changes as you age,” says makeup artist Fiona Stiles, whose clients include 50-year-old Gabrielle Union and 49-year-old Elizabeth Banks. “Things are different, so you just need to adapt and change your makeup accordingly.”
For many women over 40 (myself very much included), that often means wearing far less of it: long gone is the foundation of my twenties and thirties, when the goal was transforming skin into an airbrushed canvas. And that airbrushed look has, with the increasing popularity of filters, become that much more ubiquitous. “I use as little foundation on skin over 40 as possible,” says Stiles, adding that she’s also mindful of the formula, staying away from anything matte or heavy because it tends to sink into any lines.
Makeup artist Jo Baker suggests focusing on reinvigorating your complexion instead of covering it up. For both herself and her clients, that means starting a mini lymphatic massage before makeup application—downward strokes from ear to collarbone; then sculpting the jawline moving from the chin outwards; and the cheekbones working from the sides of the nose out and going all the way down the neck—to flush out any puffiness and boost radiance. Then she plunges her face in and out of an icy bath a few times to calm redness and get circulation going. “After that your skin will only need a smear of tint,” says Baker who likes Ilia’s Serum Skin Tint in one shade deeper than what you normally use for a more sunkissed look.
