15 Makeup Tips to Look Older ... (2023)

When you first start wearing makeup, it's easy to go a little crazy experimenting on your face. While that's a fun and important component of the learning process for teens, there are some times when thick winged eyeliner and neon green eyeshadow doesn't do you many favors. If you want to look older and more sophisticated, follow these key makeup tips!

1 Create Contours on Your Face

Possibly the biggest reason why you look younger could be because of a rounder and/or softer face, rosy cheeks, a button nose, or maybe simply because you are of small stature.

Makeup tips to look older include changing the perceived shape of your face with contrast and shading. Contours add definition and the appearance of a harder bone structure to even out a fuller face. Using blush adds curves to your cheeks. Pick a darker color than your normal skin tone and apply it just under your cheekbones. Extra tips on where to apply your blush: give yourself a great big smile in the mirror and color in the ‘apple’ of your cheek, the area where you actually blush. Then, apply a lighter tone just above your cheekbones. This makeup should heighten your cheekbones and add depth to your face.

2 Use a Light Foundation

Have you ever heard the term "cake face" used to describe a girl who uses way too much foundation? Well, that word is usually applied only to teenagers. So, to look more mature and more natural, use a light foundation, BB cream, or CC cream. This gives you coverage, but doesn't look like it—exactly what you need!

3 Sharpen Your Nose

If you have a button nose (small, soft and “cute as a button”), another good makeup tip to look older is to sharpen up this symbol of youthful adorableness and make it slimmer and edgier.

Tips on how to be a hard-nosed no-nonsense interviewee or businesswoman: use coverstick, bronzer or a foundation darker than your normal skin tone and apply it to the sides of your nose. Remember to still blend it in with your usual skin color around the edges. Then, delicately apply a lighter colored coverstick to the bridge of your nose to make it a thinner and pointier.

4 Wear Lipstick

Forget the days of gleaming lipgloss. Lipgloss is usually the winner in a teen choice award, with its shimmering effect with the occasional added glitter: elements not suited for professionalism. Lipstick is usually associated with maturity. Even if you don’t think it suits you, choosing stick over gloss will add grace and glamour over sparkles (and stickiness!)

5 Dark Lipstick

Darker colors, like browns, burgundy or deep reds, will add maturity to your lips. Make sure to still use a color that complements your skin tone.

6 Use a Lipliner

I don't care how steady your hand is, you need a lipliner! I used to think a lipliner was only for outlining your lipstick so it looked crisper, but lipliner actually serves the purpose of preventing your lipstick from spreading to the skin around your lips throughout the day. Messy lipstick is a dead giveaway that you're still new to makeup! So make sure you always use a lipliner whenever you wear lipstick, especially dark lipstick.

7 Darken Your Eyes

You can look older and more sophisticated if you avoid light pastel colors for your eyes. The ‘smoky’ look is bold but it can add depth and intensity to your eyes to counterbalance any fresh youthful brightness in your face. Use black eyeliner rather than a colorful one to narrow and frame your eyes. Apply a dark mascara to make your eyelashes appear fuller and healthier.

8 Create Balance

One of the lessons women learn throughout their years of wearing makeup is that balance is key! As a teen, you might want to put all the prettiest products on your face at once, but this is really overwhelming to others. If you go for a bold eye, make sure you tone down your lips and go with more muted tones. However, if you want your lips to pop with a bold, stunning red, you can wear it, but make your eye makeup look more natural.

9 Choose a Palate Based on Your Eye Color

Also as you get older, you'll get to know your face better. But why wait? Just learn what colors flatter you most now!

If you have blue eyes, try using metallic shades like gold, bronze, and copper, as well as a light and flirtatious champagne! Brown-eyed girls can be a little more bold, especially if you have darker skin; go with bronze and peach for daytime looks, and navy, purple, and teal if you're feeling a little daring at night! For ladies with lovely green eyes, I recommend rust, purple, and pink. And last but not least, for my fellow hazel-eyed girls, you should try gray, dusty pink, and burgundy!

10 Tightline

This is a trick my mother always uses which creates a more subtle makeup look. Tightlining is when you apply your eyeliner between your lashes on your lashline. You'd be amazed by how much fuller your lashes look and brighter your eyes look when you tightline! Plus, it allows you to avoid using tons of eyeliner above your lashline—a trademark look for youths.

11 Mascara

You should definitely use mascara to bring your eyes together. However, make sure you use a good-quality mascara that doesn't look too cheap. Also, make sure you only apply two coats, then comb out your eyelashes if you see any clumps. Clumpy eyelashes look tacky and silly, so if you want to look older and more glamorous, less is more!

12 Color in Your Eyebrows

If your eyebrows are a little wispy, use an eyebrow pencil or eyeshadow to fill them in. It is best to choose an eyeshadow that matches your natural hair color (or eyebrow color), or one only slightly darker. DON’T OVER DO IT! Otherwise you might end up looking like Helga from Hey Arnold.

Distinct eyebrows frame your face and make your features bolder and sharper, which can take away youthful softness in the face.

13 Cover up Any Acne or Spots

It’s no secret that teenagers suffer the worst from spots or acne than other generations due to hormonal imbalances and typical teenage angst. One of the key makeup tips to look older is to definitely cover up those blemishes. If you still suffer from acne or have a sudden breakout of spots, use concealer and foundation to avoid looking like you’re in the office not for business, but for work experience.

14 Look Natural

This may be the most important tip that encompasses everything else stated above. Be sensible. With age, comes wisdom; make sure you apply it when applying on your makeup. Don’t be too heavy handed with your brush otherwise the desired effect could backfire and you may look like a pre-teen trying too hard to be grown up. In my books, less is more and subtlety is sexy.

15 Wear Confidence

The best makeup is confidence. Cheesy, I know, but really accurate! Young girls tend to be more insecure and self-conscious of what others think about them. But once you're older, you care a lot less about what other people think. So smile, love yourself, and you'll instantly look so much older than any amount of makeup could make you look!

I can’t guarantee that you won’t keep getting IDd at clubs, bars, or even supermarkets, but with the help of makeup you can look older, more respectable and even indomitable—if you want to put others in their place and state your sharp sophistication! Plus, give it a few more years and you’ll be beaming at your youthful complexion when you’re forty and you look thirty. These makeup tips are here to help combat those times your youthful looks have hindered your adult wishes. Remember you aren’t alone, comment below if you have any funny stories on the silliest moments you’ve been IDd or mistaken for a teenager!

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