It’s wedding season! Weddings can bring out your inner fairy; leap brightly around finding the perfect dress, makeup, and shoes in preparation for a fun-filled, entertaining day, or turn you into an ostrich that sticks its head in the ground to avoid the extra effort. If it’s your own wedding, then you are probably elated and want to look your best. My goal in this video and article is to help you embrace the event with confidence and knowledge of what works best whether you are an ostrich or a fairy.
As an aside, I have worked on hundreds (yes, hundreds) of weddings from all different cultures and styles, and I can honestly say that behind the scenes it’s a bizarre mixture of madness and glee. What we want to avoid is that overdone wedding makeup look where everyone walks out as if they are wearing a mask. This horror is avoidable with simple wedding makeup tricks that everyone should know.
How Should Older Women Wear Wedding Makeup?
One of the biggest fallacies is that special event makeup should be more or heavier than regular makeup. With the advent of 4K cameras, what you see with the naked eye is what the camera sees, so the focus should be on your use of color in order to stand out against the various backgrounds. But first, let’s go through preparing your skin so the makeup stays on your face all day and looks fresh.
What’s the Best Way to Prep Your Skin?
I worked for Gaia TV for over 10 years running the makeup department, and one of the biggest challenges I faced was when on-camera talent came in with dry skin. Makeup looks BAD on dry skin, and on very dry skin, you can’t just apply some serum and moisturizer and expect everything to look nice.
Dry skin needs to be treated on a daily basis internally with Omega 3-6-9 oils, and externally with a nourishing moisturizer. Be sure your face cream has active ingredients like an oil soluble vitamin C (THDA), niacinamide, vitamin A, or hyaluronic acid. If there aren’t any active ingredients, then the product doesn’t add moisture, it just temporarily makes your skin feel better.
With that in mind, use a vitamin C serum or moisturizer, and then either give yourself a face massage or use a Gua Sha to move any inflammation from your under eye area. This works wonderfully well and will refresh your skin and make it ready for foundation.
As an aside, face oil has become a popular form of topical skin care, yet it is not hydrating (the molecules are too large to affect cells) and can cause the foundation to separate and look funky. Therefore, I would avoid topical oils in favor of nourishing ingredients.
Should Older Women Wear Foundation?
Foundation on mature skin can be tricky. You want to stick with a light to medium coverage product that is either a liquid or a cream, and that doesn’t set in fine lines. Look for products made with hydrating properties or specifically for older skin. On Maureen, my model, I used my current favorite foundation, PrimePrometics CC Cream in medium. It’s a cream to powder, lasts all day, and doesn’t set in fine lines.
If your face and neck are different colors, try to match your neck as best as you can. Another trick if your neck is darker than your face, is to use one color around your eyes, and a second slightly darker shade under your cheekbones and jawline in order to better match your neck. Just be sure to blend like an OG (original gangster). Nothing looks worse than a brown demarcation line on your neck!
Eye Makeup for Mature Ladies
Wedding makeup is typically pretty, soft, and elevated to match the tone of the event. If you are attending a mosh-pit rager, then this look is probably not for you. On Maureen, I applied an all over cream eye shadow called Afterglow, and also swiped it under her eyes for a soft hue. Then I used a brown waterproof eyeliner pencil called Mocha Shimmer on the top and bottom area between her lashes. This can look overdone if you’re not careful, so be sure to blend very well, keeping the liner to the outer eye edges as much as possible.
To make her eyes a little more dramatic and sophisticated, I used a rich chestnut brown eye shadow in the outer crease, and blended it into the liner for added depth. To top it all off, I applied false lashes, a wedding staple. Maureen was initially not a fan of the feel of the lashes, but after a short while, she completely forgot they were on. If you buy natural looking false lashes, you won’t look weird and crazy but rather pretty and glamorous!
Also read, BLINK, BLINK! The Eye-Opening Facts on Lashes: Thickeners, Lengtheners, False Lashes, and Extensions.
Glowing Cheeks and Glam Lips
I love blush on mature skin, and in the video, I made the most of Maureen’s features. First, I used a bronzer under her cheekbones, jawline, and the high parts of her forehead. Then I applied a cream blush called Nude on the top part of her cheekbones and a little over her brow bone. It’s soft but has enough color to look gorgeous in pictures.
Lastly, I reached for a pretty pink lipstick that went well with the Nude blush. Maureen’s outfit is a polka dot navy blue mid-length dress that screams summer wedding, so the pink lipstick needed to have some “pow” to it to stand against the darker dress top. Always consider your outfit, as the more saturated the outfit, the stronger the lip color needs to be. Then I added a neutral lip liner to frame her lips and keep the lipstick in place. A little clear lipgloss and voila!
Go for Puffy Hair
Maureen has a long, layered haircut that curls nicely. I used a wide barreled curling iron and then let the curls cool while pinned in place. After a good spritz of hairspray, I took down the curls and then pulled back the sides to open up her face. This gave her hair volume but kept it away from her face for photos and dancing. This style is very easy to manage and looks beautiful!
If you’re interested in trying out the products I used for this makeup look, use the code THEBEAUTYSHAMAN at PrimePrometics checkout for 10% off.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What are your plans for upcoming weddings? Does it overwhelm you to think about dressing for the event, or are you one of those who loves the process? Please let me know below if you have any questions or maybe what you have found that works best for you. Have a wonderful fun filled wedding season!
