I heard it said some time back that ‘a great milestone in a young woman’s life is when her style and her substance meet. From there, great ladies are born.’ Isn’t that the truth? The great thing about time and age is that you learn what suits you. Looking back on my high school photos I wish I knew then what I know now. Ah, well. Over 40? One thing I’ve learned about makeup is that less is more. You want to enhance your features rather than calling too much attention to them. When you follow this rule, you can take up to five years off your face. Here are a few of my makeup tips: Powder and full-coverage foundations can be aging, especially if you use heavily pigmented shades. They tend to sit in the fine lines and wrinkles only to bring the focus on our age. I personally recommend sheer, dewy formulas that allow your own complexion to show through, while evening the skin tone. My favorite for this is Glo Minerals gloSheer tint base. It’s dewy with a medium to sheer coverage without being pore clogging. If you’re stuck on your favorite full coverage brand then mix a little moisturizer or sunscreen with it to lighten the formula up. My choice for this is Body Guard by DERMAdoctor. Mousse like, spf 30 that stays true all day. Tons of antioxidants and you don’t get the greasy sunscreen smell. Also, chose a shade of foundation that blends perfectly into the skin. Our eyes are one of the first feature to show age so at some point, a smoky eye is hard to pull off. I recommend avoiding dark, heavy pigmented color or liner under the eye and focus on the upper lid. Draw a thin, dark line across the upper lash line and follow with a little taupe color in the crease. If you want a little more pop, smudge a warm, darker tone shadow in the outside corner of your upper lid. Using shades with a light shimmer helps to reflect light. When we think of aging we imagine wrinkles, gray hair, pounds we can’t shed and maybe throwing out our high heels. What we don’t expect is losing our eyebrows or spiraling and turning gray like they’re on steroids. Maybe you have bald patches and holes due to over tweezing and bad wax jobs. Before long we find ourselves going crazy counting each and every brow hair the same way we count calories. Aging eyebrows can be fixed, even if only temporarily. The market offers quite a bit of help out there including eyebrow growth serums. They can do a tap dance on your follicles and reactivate them to grow hair again. There’s also great eyebrow powders, waxes, and mousses that can fill in and tint to offer shape and hide bare spots. It takes time, effort and a little practice to get it right. It’s worth it! Same principle applies with concealer as with foundation. Concealer can sit in our fine lines and wrinkles, which can inevitably show our age. Apply concealer only where you need it, such as in the inner corners where there are dark shadows. Avoid outer corners of the eyes where it crinkles up and we develop crows feet. Also, use a shade lighter than your foundation. Remember, the spots or circles you are covering are darker than your skin so you want a shade lighter to compensate. The older we get the more difficult wearing a bright lipstick, such as red, can be. Lipstick can often bleed into the fine lines around our mouth. To avoid this and still wear the intense color you want I recommend blotting the color down to a stain. Your lipstick may not be as emollient, however, it will avoid bleeding.