Finding the best foundation makeup for over 60 skin is more of a problem-solving experience than a search for the perfect foundation.
While we have many things in common, us over 60 ladies are still very unique and we each have our individual skin concerns. There are some common concerns that many of us share.
Settling into wrinkles
The laws of physics are called laws because they always apply. It’s no surprise that as age we get wrinkles. Because of this, liquid, cream, and even powders or going to move into the little valleys on our face that we call wrinkles as you wear makeup.
The traditional way to stop settling and make your foundation wear longer is to put powder on top of your foundation. This is called a setting powder. It is different from a finishing powder, as it is formulated to be more translucent or invisible on the skin.
I have found that this is not a workable solution for me. Once my wrinkles got to a certain depth, there is no powder in the world that stops my foundation from settling.
One of the best ways I’ve found to prevent this is to use a stippling brush to apply my foundation. This means you apply tiny little dots of foundation with a brush and then you keep pouncing the brush until you have blurred out your foundation on top of your skin.
This will give you the lightest application of foundation, but still cover your skin and even out your skin tone. Keep in mind sometimes it isn’t the foundation that is causing settling into wrinkles, it is the sunscreen that you have applied underneath.
Dry skin over 60
The majority of us over 60 have dry skin. The majority of foundations are not created for dry skin – they are formulated for normal skin.
If you are looking for the best foundation makeup for over 60 skin, you have got to keep trying to find a formulation that works for your skin type. Here’s a super quick breakdown:
- Dry Skin – natural finish, serum foundation, hydrating formulas – stay away from anything with the word mattifying
- Normal Skin – ah, you lucky dog! You can probably wear most of the foundation on the market.
- Oily Skin – you are actually the luckiest of all. At our age, if your skin is still producing oil, you are glowing and youthful without even trying!! Look for mattifying, shine-free, or use a natural finish with powder. Avoid Dewey and hydrating formulas.
The best foundation for dry skin is one that does not remove moisture from your skin throughout the day. It’s essential to find the right skin care for your level of dryness to use on a daily basis.
The Best foundation makeup for over 60 skin is one that does not emphasis your dry, flaky skin. Finding the right setting powder can be tricky too when you are over 60.
Just as important, if not more important, is to find the right sunscreen for your skin type to use on a daily basis underneath your foundation. So keep in mind you’re really looking for a trifecta.
Or even four products that work well together. Moisturizer, sunscreen, face primer, then foundation. As you can see it’s a little more complicated than just going out and buying a foundation that is formulated for dry skin. I have found from personal experience very few of these actually work for me and my over-60 skin.
Full Coverage Foundation
Very few of them are designed for women our age even though most of the cosmetic counters push this type of foundation onto older women because we simply have more to cover up than the younger ones.
We often want to have a perfect foundation that’s going to cover all our broken veins, age spots, melasma, redness, and all the other things that we have going on with our skin. This simply does not work as you get older.
The full-coverage foundation that is too thick almost always settles into your wrinkles. Trust me, this is not doing your over-60 skin any favors. Full coverage foundation is generally unflattering to us mere mortals after 60.
You do not have to accept this as a fact of life. It is possible to take the time to apply a medium coverage foundation very thinly onto your face and have it not settle in your wrinkles.
Then use a very light concealing technique, ditch the dough foot, and use a tiny little brush to cover up the spots. This takes time and it is frustrating. I personally don’t have time to do this every day, so I settle for an answer that is somewhere in between.
Put my make up foundation makeup on a little more quickly and thickly, I have a little bit of settling which I wipe out five to 10 minutes after I have made up my face for the day
Serum Foundation
I have found that this doesn’t work for my over 60 skin. The concept of serum foundation is to add skin-loving ingredients or skin care to the foundation so that you can skip using serums in the morning and just use foundation instead.
In my personal opinion, the odds of this type of serum actually being absorbed and doing anything for your skin is minimal. While I do love that many serum foundations contain hyaluronic acid, so do many natural finish foundations.
What it does for me is have a slippery, glowy feel, which dramatically increases the likelihood of it settling into my wrinkles. This makes me have to use more powder on top of my foundation in order to minimize my pores and textures that accompany my aging face.
Best foundation for women with skin over 60
If you’re looking for specific brands that are the best foundation for women with over 60 skin you’re not gonna find it in this article.
Because no matter what I recommend to you, these specific foundations may not work for your specific needs.
That is just the reality. In general, I tend to try 5 to 6 foundations every month because of my YouTube channel.
The best ones for me are ones without luminosity or glow factor. Because those accentuate my wrinkles, texture, and pores.
Anything with a sparkle of any kind makes me look older than I actually am.
A foundation that is too thick and too matt also makes mature skin look older than it is. I look cakey and there is no shine whatsoever to my skin which makes it look dull and lifeless.
Somewhere in the middle is the perfect foundation makeup routine for me. I like a thinner medium weight liquid foundation that I can stipple on in a very light layer. I have found it is as much about how you apply the foundation as it is about the specific foundation product.
How much should I spend on Foundation?
With that said yes of course I have my favorite foundation. I have a high-end foundation that I love and it’s worth every penny I have one from Walmart that I also love and it’s worth every penny. I find it all of my testing there’s not a lot of correlation between price and performance for the best foundation makeup for over 60 skin.
Although this article is probably not gonna give you the fast and easy answer that you really want,
I want to encourage you not to give up. When searching for the best foundation makeup over 60, I was very very frustrated for most of my 40s and my 50s. I’m currently 58 close because I could not find any foundation that didn’t make me look older. I think the best makeup foundation over 50 is very similair to the over 60 favorites, but after 60 many women has extra dry skin.
I just gave up entirely and went barefaced for two decades. It wasn’t until I took a really deep dive and began to test them methodically and carefully with different primers and sunscreens and skin care underneath that I found three to four perfect foundations for me.
Reality bites. Don’t give up. You can do this.
