Marina | July 9, 2014 | Beauty |

A lot of women rely on makeup to enhance their looks and conceal their flaws and, quite frankly, I would personally rather use makeup, too, to conceal my flaws than undergo any kind of cosmetic surgery. It’s so much cheaper and it’s safer in so many ways as well. Once signs of aging start to show, women tend to use more products to either reverse these signs of aging or conceal them. Did you know, though, that makeup can actually make you look older when done wrong? Makeup isn’t, as they say in clothes, ‘one size fits all’ and there are certain looks and tricks that only apply to certain age groups. Here are some makeup mistakes that add years to your looks.

• Not using foundation – you may think that going for a natural look is a great idea but this is only true when your skin is at its best condition during your prime years. Once you have signs of aging showing, you’ll want to make sure you never leave the house without at least one layer of foundation on. Foundation will even out your skin tone and, depending on the coverage your foundation offers, can also conceal blemishes which will make your skin look better and younger so make sure you don’t skip on this.

• Applying blush incorrectly – so you know how your grandma used to make that tiny little circle on the apples of her cheek every time she uses her blush? Well, doing the same will give you the same look and will make you look older. If your blush looks like a huge dot on the apples of your cheeks, you’re doing it wrong. It should look like, well, natural blushing so make sure you sweep your blush brush sparingly.

• Exaggerated use of lip liner – darkly lined and lightly filled lips was the hottest look back in the day so if you don’t want to look like a walking, talking flashback photo of yourself, make sure you ditch this look altogether and update your lip routine as well. Instead of using a darker lip liner to line your lips and lighter lip color to fill them in, choose a lip liner and lipstick of the same color. Line and fill your lips with lip liner and top it off with lipstick to make it last. Make sure to choose a light, rosy color that will give you that youthful glow instead of dark ones that make you look older.

• Lining the lower lash line – eyeliner helps define your beautiful eyes but when you have fine lines and crow feet, that’s where the attention goes to and that makes you look older than your years. If you don’t want to look a day older than you really are, make sure you skip lining your lower lash lines once signs of aging start to show.

• Not grooming and shaping brows – we all know brows make or break your look so why skip on this step? It takes less than 10 minutes to come up with the perfect brows and a pair of well-groomed and well-shaped brows always makes you look youthful instead of sparse ones.