Hooded Eyes: Essential Makeup Tips For Women Over 50

Makeup is exciting at any age, but when you are over 50 and have hooded eyes, it may be a bit challenging to create that sparkling, wide-eyed, brighter-looking gaze that you hope to achieve and keep it smudge-free.

Whether it’s because of genetics or ageing, if you’ve started to notice heavy eyelids, your mascara or eyeliner leave a print on your brow bone or your carefully applied cut-crease eyeshadow disappears into the folds, then it’s time to learn simple make-up tricks for giving your hooded eyes a lift.

What are hooded eyes?

Hooded eyes are more common than you think. As we age, the skin loses elasticity, and it tends to sag over the mobile lid creating that tired look, but that shouldn’t prevent late bloomers from looking great.

Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, Jennifer Aniston and Naomi Campbell are amongst those celebrities familiar with it. Some of them rely on popular treatments for improving their hooded eyes like botox, eyebrow thread lifts, resurfacing lasers, fillers and plasma fibroblast, others prefer less dramatic solutions to minimize them.

It goes without saying that lifestyle changes like getting more sleep, staying hydrated and generally improving your health, as well as some fail-proof make-up techniques are still the best and most common recommendations for making your hooded eyes look wider and less tired.

Here are some ways you can still rock your natural beauty, with the help of some experts.

How to fake crease on hooded eyes

There are a few things that you can do to help prevent your hooded eyes appear optically smaller and tired.

As a rule of thumb, as these type of eyes tends to smudge make-up very easily, most experts rely on transfer-proof, long-lasting products and find it useful to apply a good primer as a canvas to prep the eyes (if you don’t have a primer, you can also use a little bit of concealer or oil-free foundation). This helps prevent creasing and keep the makeup in place all day.

Of course, they all have their own tricks for applying makeup for hooded eyes. Watching some of their tutorials online can help you learn at least the basics.

The quickest and most popular tip to achieve a more open eye appearance, according to make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury is “to apply a taupe eyeshadow a little past the eyelid, up into and past the crease, and then blend upwards and outwards in a windscreen wiper motion. This can be done with both cream and powder eyeshadows. Make sure your eyes are open when doing this so you can see where your natural socket is,” she adds.

L’Oréal makeup expert and educator Gabriel Almodovar also suggests “highlighting the inner corner with a white or champagne shimmer to make the eyes appear more open. Then, wing the liner slightly past the lash line to lift the eye. I recommend using a medium shade, neutral flat shadow – he explains- blending up past the hooded lid to make it appear not so prominent and then load up your lashes with mascara to make the eyes look bigger“.

The shape and definition of your brows play a significant part, too. Make sure your eyebrows are on point. If they are too faint or aren’t shaped correctly, your hooded eyes will look even more hidden.

Laura Geller, the make-up artist who celebrates mature beauty, knows that well: “Always address your eyebrows, even if you didn’t groom them. It may be that you need to put a little pencil on them because there’s no doubt they don’t have the shape, the sculpting, and the same amount of hairs that they used to have,” she says. “So put a little brow product in to fill in your eyebrows.”

Another sure-fire way to enhance your eye shape is learning how to use your eye-liner properly.

“A well-placed eyeliner can help create a more open and wide-awake look – says the author of Life Makeover, YouTube sensation and smoky eyes queen Dominque Sachs-. Creating a blended line that goes upwards is perfect for creating more space, and a lifted effect. Start by tight lining your upper waterline with a waterproof pencil. Then put a little black eyeshadow on your upper lash line, using a tiny flat brush. Finish the look with a small eyeshadow winged line“.

Remember not to carry your eyeliner too far out, though. This creates a droopy look that isn’t very flattering.

Also, make sure to find the right eyeliner for your eye shape. A thin one will help open up your eyes and make them appear more visible. A thicker eyeliner will only make your eyes appear more closed off.

To open up your eyes, you can also either curl your natural lashes before mascara or use false lashes. In this case, choose wisely: the wrong lashes can pull hooded eyes down and make them look small. With hooded eyes, it’s best to look for a lash that is shorter on both the outer and inner corners and the longest in the centre. Try a fluttery mix with long lashes directly above the pupil to really open the eye at the centre.

Final thoughts

As we age, our skin loses its tone and elasticity with ageing, and the skin of our eyelids is not an exception. This is why it’s very important to use the very best anti-ageing skincare on and around hooded eyes (like high-quality serums and creams) as well as to keep your eyes away from collagen-degrading rays. Wearing sunglasses and investing in a good SPF eye cream is a must.

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