Embracing imperfections: Skincare and makeup for over 40s this spring to help boost confidence
In the world of beauty, perfection has been peddled like a promise. If you just find the right product, routine, or serum, you’ll finally feel ‘enough’.
But real confidence, the kind that settles in your bones rather than sits on your skin, has very little to do with looking flawless. These days, we’re less about covering up and more about showing up — with skincare and makeup for mature skin that supports, makeup for fine lines and wrinkles that brightens without creasing, and a base that moves with you, not against you.
Start with smart skincare that does more than sit pretty on your shelf. Studio10’s Skin Repair Perfect Canvas Treatment Foundation SPF30 doesn’t just even tone — it hydrates, protects, and leaves your skin looking naturally lifted and radiant. Team with Skin Lift Glow-plexion Primer & Highlighter, a multi-tasking wonder that blurs, boosts, and brightens in one sweep.
The kind of glow that doesn’t shout, just whispers, “I’ve slept well, thanks.”
Featured Product
Studio10
Skin Repair Perfect Canvas Treatment Foundation SPF30
Member price: £28.90
Non-member price: £34.00
Regardless of what makeup for mature women I’m sporting, contrary to what people might think, confidence isn’t just something I woke up with one day. No, it didn’t arrive in a serum bottle or land neatly with my first grey hair. If only it were that easy, I probably wouldn’t be writing this now. In fact, it crept in slowly — sometime between no longer apologising for my face and finally realising I don’t owe anyone a flawless version of myself.
Perfect? Yeah, I’m over it.
‘Perfect’ is exhausting. You chase it, tweak it, soften it, lift it, and still, it’s never quite right. The goalposts move every year, and frankly, I’m not chasing them anymore. Consider me officially retired from that rat race.
After my retirement from goalpost chasing, I realised the magic wasn’t in looking polished. No matter how many tubes of whatever skincare for mature skin I hoard in my times of perfectionism-crisis. It was in feeling comfortable. Comfortable in my skin. Comfortable with my decisions. Comfortable saying, “Yes, this is me,” without adding a disclaimer about how tired I look or how I forgot concealer.
Featured Product
Studio10
Skin Lift Glow-plexion Primer & Highlighter
Member price: £22.10
Non-member price: £26.00
It’s a bit like watching celebrities insist they’ve had “nothing done” — just yoga, water, and sleep. Sure, and I’m Margot Robbie (specifically in Wolf of Wall Street, thank you). The point is, we can tell when someone’s full of it. And nothing knocks confidence faster than trying to fake your way into feeling good.
A few years ago, I caught myself obsessing over a bunch of fine lines and wrinkles that had set up shop between my brows, making themselves cosy in their new home. My instinct was to cover it with makeup, blur it, erase it. Now? I just raise that eyebrow and let the creases do their thing. It’s expressive. It’s lived-in. And honestly, it pairs quite well with a touch of complexion-boosting makeup and the right earrings.
The best kind of beauty routine — for me, anyway — is the one that doesn’t feel like a performance. I’ve retired anything that clings, cakes, or requires a prayer to blend. What I reach for now are smart textures, soft tints, and light-handed formulas that were clearly designed with mature women’s skin in mind. Not a throwback to teenage matte full coverage, thanks very much.
This kind of self-acceptance takes work. So here I am, writing to remind you that you are not a project. You are not in a state of “before”. You are not at your “after”. You don’t owe the world a fresher, firmer, more filtered version of yourself.
Some days, confidence is a red lip and a blazer. Some days, it’s a clean face, a strong moisturiser, and walking the dog with unbrushed hair and a very strong coffee. Both count. Both are enough.
So, if you’re waiting for perfection to feel confident, don’t bother. Choose now. Choose ease. Choose everything that works with your features, not against them.
And choose your face — exactly as it is — and step out the door.
Chin up. Lip balm on. Off you go.
