How to Put on Makeup for a 50-year-old

[00:00:00]
Introduction
Paula: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another Chatting With the Experts show where I speak with amazing women. Did I say amazing? They’re fabulous. Fabulous women from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora. These women share with me my mission, which is to educate, to encourage, and to empower women all over the world. And today’s topic is one I know that a lot of us women, I don’t wanna say you women, a lot of us will certainly enjoy. It’s all about Makeup for Matured Skin. My guest who will join me very soon says, “Forget about outdated anti-aging rules.” And she said, “Be ready to learn fresh, empowering approaches to makeup where we can celebrate and enhance your natural beauty.”
She’s gonna teach us specialized techniques on how to hydrate, how to lift, and how [00:01:00] to illuminate our skin. She’s a makeup artist. She’s been a licensed esthetician for over six years, and she’s certified in chemical peels, oncology skin care, yes, oncology skin care, and acne care. So to join me to do that is none other than Jenifer Hester.
Welcome to the show,
Jenifer: Hi, Paula. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. I really appreciate you having me.
Paula: We need you, because you’re talking about a topic that so many of us are thinking about, makeup for the matured skin.
Jenifer: Right, right. We definitely need that. Uh, sorry, I’m doing something with my computer. But we definitely need that because we are all maturing, you know?
I hate to say aging, age is just a number, but maturity with the skin happens with that [00:02:00] age. So yeah, this is very important. We don’t wanna walk around looking like dry mummies, you know? We wanna still be the glowing divas that we are at every age.
Paula: The glowing divas.
Jenifer: Yes.
Paula: So off-camera, we talked about skin prep, and you said skin prep, I can’t even say the word because I’m so excited.
Skin Prep & Hydration
Paula: Skin prep is the key before even makeup. Tell me about that.
Jenifer: Absolutely. So as an aesthe- … Excuse me, I can’t even say the word. As an esthetician, um, foundation, when I refer to foundation, I’m speaking of what your skin is doing before you even put the makeup on. So that whole prep comes with that, right?
So taking care of your skin. You always, always, always wanna keep your skin hydrated and healthy. So if you’re seeing an esthetician, that’s [00:03:00] A-plus on the list. That’s first. Um, second is you, like I said, you always just wanna make sure you’re working with clean, hydrated skin.
Paula: So you talk about clean, hydrated skin, as in drinking lots of water.
I’m hearing a lot more these days about the importance of water.
Jenifer: Yeah, so the importance of water, but not only water. So as a holistic nutritionist also, I think that it’s more important or just as important to eat your water as well.
Paula: Hmm.
Jenifer: So eating vegetables that are green leafy, also eating cucumbers, and just your water-based veggies, so your squashes, your melons.
That comes in the fruit family, so you definitely wanna add lots of fruit as well. You cannot go wrong with those types of hydration, methods in terms of eating. [00:04:00] The watermelon, the cantaloupes, all of the melons, the berries. but be careful with the berries, because some of them are on the Dirty Dozen list.
So you just wanna make sure that you cleanse your berries properly before you’re gonna eat, and always make sure you buy them organic. But that’s an excellent way to hydrate the skin as well. And, if you eat fish, getting your omega fatty acids. You can also get that from your walnuts, your avocado, and things like that.
So that’s just as important as drinking water because that hydrates you from the inside out.
Paula: Jen, you’re a second-time guest on the show, I’m not gonna hide that, and you never cease to amaze me how knowledgeable you are. And I guess that’s because we are approaching … I mean, you’re talking from a different angle this time.
Last time you spoke as an esthetician. But what I [00:05:00] forgot to include in your bio is that you are a holistic, um, nutritionist.
Jenifer: Yes.
Paula: So now when we spoke just now about skin prep being the key, and you talked about hydration, and I said, “Just water.” You said, “No, you can eat your water. Eat your hydration.” I was like-
Jenifer: Mm-hmm
Paula: “‘Eat your hydration?'” And now you bring that out. Yeah. But you pointed out something about getting, hydration or is it omega health from walnuts, from fish, and you said all of that we need to put into consideration-
Jenifer: Yes …
Paula: as part of our skin prep or skin care.
Jenifer: Absolutely, yes. Yes, absolutely. It’s very important because it’s not only gonna hydrate your skin, but it’s also gonna provide vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function.
Especially as we age, we begin to lose collagen and other important things that keep our skin glowing and plump, you know? And those things can help add that back in. As we age, [00:06:00] we lose about 20%, of collagen every year. Maybe a little less, but somewhere along those lines, every year as we age.
And so it’s very important that we’re eating the right things to make sure we’re taking care of not only our outside, but also our inside.
Paula: They go hand-in-hand, you know? Many times we think just of the outside, what people see, but-
Jenifer: Mm-hmm …
Paula: it’s important to-
Jenifer: Yeah
Paula: … take care of the inside, too.
Jenifer: Absolutely. Absolutely. It will help to keep hypertension away. It will help to lower your chances of developing diabetes or pre-diabetes. Now we see a lot of things about dementia. Eating the proper foods can help prevent dementia, early set-on Alzheimer’s, and, just different illnesses like that.
So it’s very, very important to not only hydrate with water, but to also eat so that you are [00:07:00] hydrating and preventing illnesses as well.
Paula: Okay. All right. So that’s part of, as you say, the skin prep, healthy skin prep.
Jenifer: Yes.
Foundation & Coverage
Paula: So let’s go on to now talking about the best type of makeup for the matured, the seasoned skin.
Oh, I prefer matured skin at the moment.
Jenifer: Yes, mature.
Paula: The seasoned sounds like-
Jenifer: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah. Seasoned sounds almost we are talking about food, so seasoned-
Jenifer: I know. …
Paula: I was like, “Eh, food?”
Jenifer: Even though some of us are spicy.
Paula: Oh, yeah.
Jenifer: Yeah. So with foundations, like in our youthful days, even though we’re still in our youthful days-
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: We’re just mature, in those days, the types of foundations that we were drawn to were more like the heavy foundations that would give us full coverage or even medium coverage. Well, now I think it’s… not I think. It is better, [00:08:00] definitely, to skip the matte foundations and the heavy foundations and go with more sheer foundations, so like the skin tints, the BB creams that have tint in it.
That way you can build on the amount of coverage that you want and prevent your skin from looking cakey, yeah, from just plain looking cakey, because when you have a matte foundation on already dry skin, definitely that is the combination or perfect ingredient for cake, you know? And so we definitely wanna avoid that cakey look by selecting more of the tinted foundations or facial serums and BB creams.
Yeah, even CC creams have the tint in it as well.
Paula: What do you mean by BB and CC creams?
Jenifer: Yeah, so BB [00:09:00] creams and CC creams are basically like a all-in-one type cream, right? So they’ll contain like vitamin C, whatever other kind of … It depends on who’s making it, but it’ll contain like certain vitamins, maybe certain acids in it as well, that will work to not only hydrate the skin or moisturize the skin, but also prevent like further
Oh, oh gosh, wait. Let me start that over.
Paula: Okay.
Jenifer: So not only to hydrate and moisturize the skin, but also to repair the skin as well. Oh. And those will also contain like I said, tint in it. Some of them may not contain tints for like really dark skin. Most of them do contain tints for medium to light or maybe dark to light, but you just have to check which [00:10:00] brand you’re using to see that they have, you know, an available amount of colors.
Paula: Okay. Okay. All right. So sorry I interrupted you-
Jenifer: Oh, it’s okay … um,
Paula: when you talk about foundations. All right. What about shadows and, you know …
Jenifer: Yeah. So
Eye Makeup
Jenifer: shadows, that it depends, right? So if you have a lot of creasing in the eyes, if you have hooded eyes where, this part of the eye kinda comes down you know, like I can’t really do it ’cause obviously I don’t have hooded, but it’s where this part is closer to your lid.
Yeah. But let me, let me get- So you don’t really have … What’s that? Let me
Paula: focus on you. Let me put the camera … Okay. Right. So do that again the way you’re focusing.
Jenifer: Oh. So for hooded lids, that’s where this part up here right under your brow bone-
Paula: Mm-hmm …
Jenifer: kind of hangs low-
Paula: Okay … uh,
Jenifer: right over your actual-
Paula: Eyelids?
Jenifer: lid, lid.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: So that it forms like a little- [00:11:00] shelf of skin, if you will. You don’t really have this, this in between.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: I don’t know if I’m explaining that well enough.
Paula: You are.
Jenifer: But if you have those types of eyes, it’s better to avoid the frosty looking shadows and go with more soft mattes, closer to your skin tone, because we don’t wanna enhance, especially if you have crepey eyes, we don’t wanna enhance the crepiness, right?
We kinda wanna just make it look pretty, just kinda balance it out. So definitely avoid the shimmery and frosty types of eye shadows.
Paula: Okay, that’s good. That’s a good tip. Okay.
Jenifer: Yeah.
Paula: What about, okay, I know, like, I knew people that had, I don’t know how to describe their eyes. It’s like they have a bone, like [00:12:00] their eyelids are- accentuated.
So it’s not like they have what you just described, but more like their, their eyelids, they have very pronounced, what do you call these?
Jenifer: Um, hmm.
Paula: The-
Jenifer: Like the brow bone?
Paula: … the bone over the eyelids. Yeah. Yes.
Jenifer: Oh, that’s interesting. Um, hmm.
Paula: I guess, so the eyelids really popped.
Jenifer: Yeah. So meaning maybe that their eyes are more sunken?
Paula: Yes. That’s-
Jenifer: Okay. So when the eyes are more sunken, you definitely want to… Hmm. It’s really about the shading and highlighting effect, right? So when I say highlighting, I’m not always referring to shimmer or frost.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: But you wanna limit the amount of light shadow in this area. [00:13:00] Uh, no, um, actually it’s the other way around.
So you kinda wanna make it a little lighter in here, and then make it a little darker up here. That’s kind of a demonstration type of, um-
Paula: Okay. Okay …
Jenifer: um, I think that would require a demonstration to really understand, because it just has to do with shading the right area with the darker so that they don’t look so sunken.
You do not ever want to follow the brow bone with a dark color, because that will make your eyes more sunken. That’s one thing I can say, is that you definitely wanna avoid using a dark shadow right in that crease where the brow bone is, ’cause that’ll just, yeah, you’ll be definitely looking like sunken eyes.
Paula: All right. That’s good to know.
Jenifer: [00:14:00] Mm-hmm.
Paula: Mm-hmm. Another thing is
Setting Sprays & Powder
Paula: setting sprays, because, these days a lot of people, you know, after they put on their makeup they do the setting sprays.
Jenifer: Yeah.
Paula: How, when we start aging, how does that play a part?
Jenifer: Right. So, you know, I know a lot of us feel like if their skin is glistening that it looks oily or, you know, I don’t want my face looking shiny.
But I will say as we mature, we lose, you know, we have more dull-looking skin, because of the dryness, and the loss of collagen and things like that. So it’s kind of helpful if- you use a dewy setting spray. Let that dry, and then maybe go over it with like [00:15:00] a, …
There’s this one that everyone uses.
Oh, what is it called? I forget the name of it. But I always go in with a dewy one because that looks youthful. You know? That looks glowy. We don’t … you know, as we mature, we just wanna keep our glow, like I said, you know? And so that’s my opinion, is to use a … if you like a matte, then perhaps just don’t go too heavy with the matte.
Yeah, just don’t go too heavy with the matte setting spray. ‘ Cause that’ll make you look powdery, you know? And that’s another thing. You want to avoid using too much powder. We do not wanna bake at a certain point in our lives with the matured skin. We do not wanna bake, especially if you have crepey skin under the eyes.
You see these videos, all the girls are baking under [00:16:00] here with the lighter, um… Oh, my gosh. Concealer.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: I’m so sorry.
Paula: That’s fine. I’m not too much into makeup, so I can’t even help you. I’m sorry.
Jenifer: Oh, okay, okay. That’s fine, that’s fine. Well, a lot of us think that we have to brighten our eyes underneath and that’ll kinda hide this and that, but actually too much brightening under the eyes will enhance it.
It will bring it out. Yeah. Especially if you have crepey, if you have bags under there. You always wanna use… and this is the only time where I would suggest using fingers to apply makeup. Make sure your fingers are clean. Clean, clean, clean. But, and your skin is always clean and moisturized.
You do wanna use a primer prior to applying any kind of tint to your skin. You can use a dewy primer. You can use a [00:17:00] matte primer, if you choose. Some of us do have oily skin in the mature phase due to hormonal changes and stuff like that. So if you choose to use a mattifying primer, that’s fine as well.
But if you’re using a mattifying primer, I would suggest using a dewy setting spray. But either way, when you put on concealer under your eyes, you’re always gonna go with your ring fingers. You’re gonna put the concealer on your hand first, dab it lightly from your hand, and then dab it not where your crepes are.
Are, am I still, like, focused on the camera?
Paula: No, let me, let me focus you. One second. Okay. Um, hold on. Um… Right. Okay There you go. Yeah.
Jenifer: So you’re not going to go where the crepes are, but you’re gonna kinda go underneath that, and you’re gonna gently tap it in only in this little area here.
Paula: Mm.
Jenifer: Because we don’t wanna
We don’t need [00:18:00] to do the whole entire eye, otherwise you’re gonna have just this bright, you know, stain- not stain, but a bright thing under your eye, you know?
Paula: So visible, right?
Jenifer: Exactly. Exactly. We wanna blend it as much as possible with our finger, just tapping it in nice and lightly until you cannot see it.
Now, if you have darkness under there, that’s a whole different story. We don’t wanna just go in with straight concealer, you know, because that’s going to make it look ashy, if you will. So you’ve gotta go in with maybe, an orange color or a peach color, depending on your brown tone. I would go in with a light orange if I had darkness under my eyes, and I would go right where the dark area is.
Again, with my finger, I put it on my, put the color on my hand first, and then I [00:19:00] will dab it off with my finger. Not to have too much, and then I will dab it where the darkness is only until it’s almost invisible, then I go in with the concealer, same exact way. And then after that, to set that, I will use a, um…
What is that powder called? Oh my gosh. It’s not a baking powder. Um-
Paula: Translucent?
Jenifer: I don’t- Translucent, thank you.
Paula: Ooh, I actually knew something.
Jenifer: I’m sorry. Yes. Yeah, yeah, you did. And, sorry about this. Like, I don’t know what’s happening with me, but I’m in menopause, and ever since, things that I say every day don’t come out as easily, so forgive the, uh, pauses and forgetfulness here.
But yeah. You’ll take the translucent powder, again, on your hand. With a brush, you wanna, you know, dab [00:20:00] it off, or you can use a, like a triangular sponge. But either way, you’re gonna dab it off onto your hand, and then you’re going to, you know, press it into the area, you know? Very lightly. But yeah, that’s what you would do.
Did I get off topic here?
Paula: No, you didn’t,
Jenifer: because you just- Okay, ’cause that can happen …
Paula: well, you just gave us a lot of the information-
Jenifer: Right, detail,
Paula: yeah … you know, in details, yeah. Which we needed. Well, at least I needed. Yeah. You could tell that I’m not much of a makeup person. I’m more a lipstick. I like lipstick.
Can you tell?
Jenifer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Paula: And I have a lot of, I noticed, bags under my eyes.
Jenifer: Mm-hmm.
Paula: I’ve just come to the conclusion that babies have bags under their eyes too, so I’m a baby.
Jenifer: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, bags are one of the hardest things to treat under the eye. You can do, like, cold compresses. You can use eye creams that are meant [00:21:00] for de-puffing, under the eye.
Keep that little eye cream in your refrigerator so you’re always … using it when it’s cold. You can take a,
you know a, it, you know those ice globes, that you-
Paula: Mm-hmm
Jenifer: … see all the time? You can take those and, you know, go under your eye before you’re gonna put on your makeup or before you put on your moisturizer, or actually when you put on your moisturizer for the day.
Yeah, that’ll be-
Paula: And does it last? Will it last for the whole day? Will it keep the bags or the puffiness away for the day, or is that just a temporary-
Jenifer: Probably not …
Paula: fix for an hour?
Jenifer: Yes, it’s a temporary fix. Like I said, the bags under the eye is definitely a hard thing to treat with creams and such because, those bags happen from pressure.
They also happen from lack of sleep. They can happen from weight loss.
Paula: Mm-hmm
Jenifer: … and that’s, like, a fatty deposit.
Paula: Mm.
Jenifer: Once you get those fatty [00:22:00] dep- sometimes it’s hereditary. I have a girlfriend, she’s had bags under her eyes since she was, like, 10 years old. You know, it’s maybe a little older than that, I’m exaggerating.
But that’s, it’s hereditary. Her mom has it, her aunt has it, you know, her cousin has it. It’s just one of those things, you know?
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: You can see a dermatologist and talk about it to see what options you have, but they do have creams. Some people use, can use, in the modeling industry, they used to use Desitin, the little diaper rash ointment.
Paula: I know that.
Jenifer: They would use that. Yeah. They would use that under the eyes, but again, that is a temporary fix.
Paula: So it goes away. And then I think putting things near the eye, anything could happen.
Jenifer: I know.
Paula: It could get mashed in.
Jenifer: You know, the eye, especially right under it, that is the most sensitive area on the face.
The skin is thinner in that area, and we have to be so gentle. [00:23:00] That’s why we use our ring fingers, because this has the most gentle pressure. This has, I believe it’s the first finger that has the heaviest touch. And then this one, like I said, is the lightest touch. Even lighter than the pinky.
Paula: I can, I can believe that. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Ooh, looking at the time, I knew this was gonna happen. But yeah, there’s something else that you mentioned, that less is more. What do you mean? As we age, we need to put on less makeup?
Jenifer: Yes. Less is more. We do not need to cake it on, especially because we’re developing wrinkles, you know.
And when we cake it on, it gets stuck in there and-
Paula: Mm
Jenifer: … It just looks very cakey.
Paula: Mm.
Jenifer: So the less you have on, the better. We just don’t wanna go heavy. We wanna look as light and fresh as possible. Yeah, that’s what I could say about that.
Paula: Okay. [00:24:00] And last but not least,
Lifting Techniques
Paula: you mentioned, to me that you’re gonna tell us how to lift, and I keep doing
Jenifer: this.
Yes.
Paula: Yes. You know, my mom used to say, “Do this so you don’t get a double chin.”
Jenifer: Exactly. Yes. So with makeup, I’ll say with makeup, because some lifting is, not necessar- like some, you know, makeup techniques can’t …
If you have a double chin, you know, obviously putting makeup on is not gonna make that double chin disappear.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: But what we can do is hide it, shade it, you know? Whenever we’re putting on eyes, we wanna make sure we’re doing it in a lifting fashion-
Paula: Mm-hmm
Jenifer: … especially, so, in this area here, we always wanna use either a bronzer, usually it’s a bronzer, and we wanna apply it in a lifting fashion.
When we put concealer on, we put it right here, [00:25:00] also in a lifting fashion. Because as we mature, this, gravity pulls everything down.
Paula: Oh, oh.
Jenifer: So how we can do it with makeup is to just gently brush it on to lift it in that area. With your concealer, oh, lift it right there. Even with your blush, you’re lifting right here.
You’re not going all the way over like in, you know, in the ’80s, they had you smile, and you put it on from here all the way over. Now we’re starting, like, mid, mid-cheek, if you will.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: And we’re gonna apply it in a lifting fashion. Use a little bronzer right here, and you’re also lifting. You can even use some highlight and, in this area, and you’re gonna lift it as well.
For making this area appear lifted, what you would do [00:26:00] is put a little, What is the, oh gosh. I can’t think of the word. Um.
Paula: Concealer?
Jenifer: Oh, some shading.
Paula: Okay.
Jenifer: Some shading. That’s not the right word for it. Um- Yeah … but that’s basically what it is. You’re gonna put it right under your chin, and you’re gonna go right along the chin area, maybe even up to the ear.
And when you brush it out, you’re actually gonna brush it in a down fashion. And it’s gonna be a dark color. It’s gonna be a dark color so that it actually forms or gives the appearance of a nice chiseled look. You also do it under your chin area here, and of course on this side as well. Now, if you have a double chin, there are a couple of things you can do with that.
Suck in your neck like this. I know it looks so, so crazy. Um, [00:27:00] but then you would put the shading … Is it, it’s … Oh, gosh. I wish I could think of this technical name for this. Let’s see.
Paula: And when you talk about, while you’re looking for that, I want you to talk about sucking your neck.
That’s temporary in order to put that shade in.
Jenifer: Yes, exactly.
Paula: Because you can’t walk around like this.
Jenifer: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So you just suck in your neck like that, and you see how I have the … I don’t know if you can-
Paula: Yes
Jenifer: … see the extra- I think
Paula: we can …
Jenifer: meet there. Yeah. So you’re just gonna shade in that area with the darker color as well.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Jenifer: And then when you take your neck out, you just brush it down a bit, and then you look like you have a whole chin area, you know? So
Paula: it’s an optical illusion, in other words.
Jenifer: Optical illusion, yes. Yes, absolutely. Mm-hmm.
Paula: Ooh.
Jenifer: Yeah. Oh, and I forgot to say, when you conceal, like, if you have dark marks in other places, [00:28:00] you’re gonna use your finger and just spot conceal in those areas, and you wanna blend it in with your finger.
Yeah.
Paula: Spot conceal. Okay. Well, we’ve learnt a lot. We have learnt a lot. Can you believe 30 minutes are up already?
Jenifer: Wow.
Paula: Can’t believe it.
Jenifer: And I could go on.
Paula: I know. You said this is one of your favorites. Yeah. And that you’ve got so many, so many things that you could talk to us about.
Jenifer: Yeah.
Paula: Just so full of-
Jenifer: I teach a class over here, as a matter of fact, for this.
Yeah.
Paula: Oh.
Jenifer: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Paula: Okay. Okay.
Wrap-Up & Resources
Paula: So those who don’t attend your class but would love to know more about you, how can they find out about you?
Jenifer: Absolutely. They can go to my website at www.glowtheorynj.com. That’s glowtheorynj.com. I’m on Instagram and Facebook and [00:29:00] TikTok also under GlowTheoryNJ.
I’m also on LinkedIn. Gosh, if I could remember my LinkedIn-
Paula: Don’t worry, I’ll drop it in the chat- Yeah … and put it in the show notes.
Jenifer: Thank you.
Paula: Thank you. Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you so much, Jenifer. And there we go, folks, another amazing guest on Chatting With The Experts sharing with us- their expertise and I hesitated there because Jen is a woman of many talents.
So that’s why I hesitate to say there because for her, it’s one of her many talents. And, if you’d like to be a guest on this, my show, Chatting with the Experts, just like Jen has been, this is her second time, please reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com. And, I’m also on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
My business page on LinkedIn is Chatting with the Experts, on Facebook it’s also Chatting with the Experts, and on Instagram , my handle there is [00:30:00] @chat_experts_podcast. We also have a YouTube channel that we would love for you to subscribe to, and there you would see all the past episodes of the amazing women that have been sharing their expertise, whether it’s on skincare or on oncology.
The topics are just amazing. This time around Jen shared with us how to, hmm, how to do makeup for matured skin. So thank you so much, Jen. And now we will open up the floor to those who joined us so they can ask you more questions. Thank you, thank you, thank you again.
Jenifer: Thank you.