The holidays are almost here.  We’ll be going to parties and entertaining. We’ll be seeing people we may not have seen in years.  While we are confident in our age and where we are in life, we still want to look our best—especially at this time of year.  There’s a simple and easy way to rev up our looks that takes just minutes and doesn’t cost a fortune. The premise may seem counterintuitive: forget the color and go nude.

Look at your younger self

If you look at pictures of yourself as a child, there is no vivid color.  There is only the natural color of your skin, your eyes, your brows and your hair.  The goal of the nude makeup look—50+ years later— is to capture that same look while looking polished and sophisticated and refreshed.

But we are older, you say.  We don’t have the perfect skin and silky hair and clear eyes that we had then.  Isn’t it better to cover up our not-so-perfect skin, to try to make a statement with our not-so-plump lips and to add shadow to match our eyes hoping to make them pop?  No, it actually isn’t.  When you make up your eyes with liner and shadow and mascara, and then add a bold lipstick, the effect can be garish.

Now to be clear, we are not suggesting that you go “Pamela Anderson” for the holidays.  For a woman who is constantly in the public eye, who has been known in the past for her brazen style, who is part of an industry where you are judged on your looks, we applaud Pamela’s confidence and courage.  This is a woman who has reached a place of total comfort with herself.  Most of us cannot or will not achieve that level of daring.  For the rest of us there is the nude look in makeup.

How to go nude

Lips

The goal of the nude lip color is “your lips but better”.  The secret is to choose a nude lipstick that captures the heightened lip pigment that would result if you bit your lips.  Nude lipsticks, are not, as the name would imply, invisible. They supply kinder, gentler color, but not so much as to accentuate and draw attention to less-than-perfect lips or those vertical lines that showed up when we weren’t looking.  A more natural color lipstick makes lips look plumper.

Not all nudes are right for you

The key to getting the right look with nude lips is selecting a neutral tone that works with your skin tone.  The chart below will help you to choose the right one:

• Pale to fair skin tones look best in rose or creamy beige with a pink undertone and a touch darker than your complexion.
• Fair to medium skin tones will benefit from light pink and golden hues.
• Those with medium to deep skin tones should look for shades of caramel and brown-based neutrals.
• Medium or olive skin tones can work with both cool or warm neutral tones.
• “Nude” for dark to deep skin tones may mean rich shades of brown, not too beige or cool in tone.

Nude lipsticks we suggest

Hot Lips Lipstick in Super Cindy

From Charlotte Tilbury. Perfect for fair to medium skin tones. $35 at Nordstrom

Glossier UltraLip High Shine Lipstick in Dusty Rose

Perfect for dark skin tones as well as medium or olive skin tones. $30 at Sephora.

M·A·CXIMAL silky matte lipstick in Yash

Perfect for medium to deep skin tones. $33 from Mac.

Rouge Dior On Stage Lipstick in 222 Confident Nude

Perfect for pale to fair skin tones. $48 at Dior

Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet Luminous Matte Lip Color in 62 Libre

Perfect for medium or olive skin tones. $50 at Chanel

Eyes

For many women, the tendency as they grow older is to make their eyes stand out by using more makeup.  However, the goal should be to make them look clear and bright.  And the secret to that is to use brown–not turquoise–eyeshadow.  The key is the right brown.

The chart below will help you to decide:

• Green eyes: browns with a slight warm, reddish tinge will make the green in your eyes come to life
• Blue eyes: cool neutral browns make blue eyes pop
• Brown eyes: most brown eyes have some gold or amber in them.  Warm browns that tend gold will pick up the gold and add depth to brown eyes
• Hazel eyes: browns that have a slight plum or purple undertone enhance the blue, green and gold tones of hazel eyes.

How to apply your eyeshadow

Many women think they have to apply three to four eyeshadows to make their eyes look good.  The fact is that a light ivory dusting under the brows and a brown that enhances your eye color swept across the lid is the most natural looking.

Avoid eyeshadows that are metallic or glittery.  Not only do they show up wrinkles, they do not look natural.

Nude eyeshadows we suggest

Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Pallete The Sophisticate

Perfect for blue eyes. $55 from Charlotte Tilbury

Urban Decay Naked2 Basics Matte Eyeshadow Palette

Perfect for blue and hazel eyes. $35 at Sephora.

Patrick Ta Artistry Edit Eyeshadow Palette in Medium

Perfect for brown eyes. $62 at Sephora.

NARS Eyeshadow Palette in St. Paul de Vence

Perfect for green eyes. $55 from Nordstrom.

Chanel Les Beiges Eyeshadow Palette in Light

Perfect for hazel eyes. $75 at Chanel.

Face

By this time in our lives, we have probably settled on a good foundation.  Applied sparingly, foundation gives the skin a flawless look.  It is blush that adds color to the face.  For the nude look, we are not going to use blush but rather contour.

How to apply contour

Look in the mirror, take the flat of your hand and with the baby finger side, hold it perpendicular to your cheek, until you find the ridge under your cheekbones.  Your hand will follow the angle of your cheekbone.  Press against your skin and then remove your hand and look in the mirror.  That mark under your cheekbones is where you are going to apply contour.

Before you start enthusiastically applying contour, there is a caveat:  you are creating a shadow not brown streaks that draw the wrong kind of attention.  Achieving this takes practice and the right product.

The good news is that the right contour is easy to find because the color is universal for almost all skin types.  It is not warm, it is not glittery or metallic; it is a flat, cool soft brown.

Once you have your product and your brush, and before you venture out for the holidays, practice before you wash your makeup off at night. Remember that with contouring, the goal is not to add color to your face but shadow.  That is why all of the suggested contour products below are neutral, cool toned, matte browns.

Contour we suggest

Sephora Collection Contour Matte Powder, $19

Erinde Cool Toned Contour in Grey Brown, $8.99

Westman Atelier Face Trace Contour Stick in Biscuit, $48

Dior Forever Skin Contour Stick in 01 Light, $50

https://www.dior.com/en_ca/beauty/products/dior-forever-skin-contour-Y0382001.html

Give your nude look some time to grow on you. Then introduce your fresh new look to the outside world.  Try it on when you go to the grocery store or the post office.  By the time the holiday parties roll around, you will own your look and be primed to hear “Wow!  You look great!”

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See also: Can women over 60 wear red lipstick? Yes, and we show you how