My free anti-ageing trick to lose 10 years in half-hour, by 53-year-old magnificence knowledgeable HANNAH BETTS
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Remember Stila? If you’re in your fifties, then of course you do: Stila was the cool Nineties slap brand. I loved its founder, make-up artist Jeanine Lobell, 60, a woman who swore as much as I do. And I collected its brilliant palettes, until, that is, they were stolen – yes, stolen – from my desk drawer. It was that hot.
No make-up bag was complete without its multiple award-winning Convertible Color Dual Lip & Cheek Cream (£18, Selfridges). When Lauder bought Jeanine’s business in 1999, its boss hollered: ‘I don’t care what she wants, give it to her!’
Hannah Betts’s usual look, left, and post-Stila makeover
Thirty years on, Stila is still the cool-girl obsession: only said girl is now Gen Z and lives for TikTok. She swoons over her Kitten Eye Shadow (£15), as she does other Nineties classics such as Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey (now £19.60, clinique.co.uk), MAC Spice Lip Pencil (now £15, boots.com), and Chanel Nail Colour in Rouge Noir (£30, chanel.com).
What can fifty-somethings such as myself learn from this generation? I took my pal, 22-year-old Liv, along to Selfridge’s Stila counter to meet its millennial chief make-up artist, Sascha Jackson, to pool our intergenerational knowledge. (Anyone can do this, by the way, just head to the Stila UK Instagram account to discover where to book your free makeover.)
Sascha told us that make-up avoidant Liv might wear more – while I was deemed to require less. I was informed that I am wrong to assume that the palest shade of Stila’s gorgeous Stay All Day Foundation & Concealer (now £17, Selfridges) is too dark and warm for me. ‘It’s perfect – you look a lot more human,’ Liv agreed. While I’m usually happy to be vampire white, I will concede that the more neutral tone did make me look less Miss Havisham.
Sascha applied warmer blush than my usual icy lilac, lower down and more centrally positioned. The result: a rounder, less haggard face. She also deployed the trick of daubing rouge on the top of my nose to mimic sunburn. Obviously, I am actual sunburn phobic, but it did appear fresh-faced.
I knew I’d been veering too dark with my eyebrow shade, which Stila’s Sketch & Sculpt Brow Pencil in Medium (£18, Selfridges) confirmed. Meanwhile, my obsessive attempts to achieve symmetrical brows was met with an insistent: ‘Sisters, not twins!’ Too matchy-matchy is an instant ager.
Next came TikTok hit Heaven’s Dew All Over Glimmer in Silverlake (£27) over my eyelids, a swoop of Stay All Day ArtiStix Graphic Liner in Disco (£21) along my lashes with a faint wing of Mambo (purple) – a lighter, more natural and contemporary arrangement than my usual smoky-ish eye. A quick mascara swipe and just a finger-dab of Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick (now £16.80, boots.com) for my mouth. Again, too perfectly precise and you’re needlessly clocking up the years.
Overall, the attitude was ‘less is more’. So no, I wasn’t allowed to add more concealer on my dark circles; no, I wasn’t allowed to exaggerate my minuscule eyes; and no, I would not be allowed to powder my stupendously shiny nose.
According to my juniors, my aim to perfect, perfect, perfect resulted in an old-fashioned, over-finished face. The more youthful approach is not to get bogged down in detail, but a relaxed, broad-brush zhuzh. At first, this left me feeling a tad bland, featureless and exposed: tiny-eyed; my warmer, rounder face seeming slumped; my one small age spot prominent (a blemish the others couldn’t see.)
Yet the universal conclusion was that Sascha is a genius and I had dropped at least a decade in thirty minutes: from Liv, from my coffee shop posse, from my (usually oblivious) partner.
Looking young isn’t my sole goal, but this verdict was compelling. I admit, I still want to powder my nose, but ‘less is more’ is my new spring mantra.
Mother’s Day gifts
Race you to it!
Cosmetic craving
Given that I am in receipt of expensive beauty wares, friends are always inquiring why I bother with budget buys. My answer: expensive doesn’t always mean best, and it certainly doesn’t mean most joyous.
It’s my birthday next weekend and I am hoping for a Bronnley Lemon Soap Gift Set (£25, bronnley.co.uk). These citrus, neroli and cedar wonders, created in 1892, can be had for £8.50 each. Made in Blighty in small batches, they have enchanted my grandmother, my mother, me and now my six-year-old niece.
We’re in good company: the King has just awarded Bronnley a royal warrant. Rumour has it that he too is under the lemon-shaped soap spell.
