Look Inside My Makeup Bag As A Beauty-Obsessed 48-Year-Old Who Has Zero Time In The Morning And Really Likes To Look Young
by Audie Metcalf
I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to whittle down my routine to the perfect products that make me look as gorgeous and dewy as I possibly can.
When I was in my 20s, that routine included eyeshadow, primer, mascara, highlighter, powder, and multiple colors of lipgloss. I looked great.
When I was in my 30s, I still used all that stuff, but didn’t look as great.
Now that I’m in my 40s, I realize that there was a reason I hated how my makeup looked for 10 years—I wore too much of it.
As we age, I think in our desire to mitigate our slowly-drooping jowels and our not so slowly puffing eyes, we overcompensate by using a lot of products. I learned the hard way. But you don’t have to. The key is using skin-like textures, the right colors (hint: it’s not nudes), and balmy, sheer formulas.
I feel confident that after 36 years of wearing makeup, buying makeup, obsessing over makeup, and now being sent makeup for free for my job, I have created the most effortless, easy, no-makeup, natural-looking makeup bag that, yes, makes me look young. I don’t care that it’s not popular to say anymore. I want to look young.
Let’s dive in.
1. Trish McEvoy Beauty Balm Instant Solutions® BB Cream SPF 35
Zoom in on that bottle. See all the stuff it claims to do? It really does it. And? It looks like almost nothing on the skin. It’s a deep mystery to me why this isn’t hugely viral on TikTok or whatever. This is such an underrated hidden gem if you love a true, skin-like finish with your foundation and find most other foundations make your wrinkles look worse when you, ya know, have expressions. If you’re combo skin (like me) it’s superb for controlling oil. If you’re dry, it has a lovely dewy finish. It’s a recent discovery, and I’m furious I didn’t find it sooner.
Price: $87
2. Makeup by Mario SoftSculpt Transforming Skin Enhancer®
Such an ugly photo! And yet there is nothing in the world like this bronzer! It’s so unbelievably sheer. And in fact, they don’t even call it a bronzer. It’s an “enhancer” whatever that is. But it makes your skin look warm and kissed by the sun but without adding any layers to create wrinkles or texture. I will never use another bronzer. Never. I use it with the brush below in a haphazard manner, usually without a mirror, and it always looks perfect and never orange.
Price: $32
3. Danessa Myricks Beauty Yummy Skin Blurring Balm Powder Lowlighter Soft Glow Highlighter
This is a blush and highlighter in one product that doesn’t enhance pores or wrinkles. It’s some kind of witchy modern miracle. I dab it on my cheekbones only, and it’s lasted foreverrrrr. It adds glow and aprés-ski flush without glitter or wetness. A dream.
Price: $25
4. Charlotte Tilbury Magic Vanish Color Corrector
I know you think color correctors are scary. And they are. But this one isn’t. Press it onto the skin next to your tear ducts and under your nose and you will instantly banish redness, purpleness, veins, darkness. It’s a miracle worker, and I often don’t even follow up with a concealer it works so well. You don’t want super light concealer to cancel our red/dark. Never. It makes us look old and weird. You need peachy tones like this. You will not believe it.
Price: $32
5. Jones Road The Face Pencil
If I have blemishes or spots I just press this pencil onto them and then dab dab dab to blend. Easy and perfectly skin-like. Keep THIS sharpener handy though.
Price: $30
6. Yves Saint Laurent Candy Glaze Lip Gloss Stick
Oh, this? This is only the best gloss/balm hybrid I have ever worn in my life and if they ever discontinue it I will spend every dollar of my savings on buying all of the remaining product because I cannot live without it. It’s very plumping but doesn’t have that spiky mint feeling. And while it’s technically clear, it just makes your lips a natural shade of lip. And, no. It’s not sticky. The price is horrid and astronomical and I wish it wasn’t the case that the best lip gloss in the world is also this expensive but sometimes it just works out this way. Buy it. It’s ENROBING.
Price: $42
7. Chanel Rouge Coco Flash In Easy
We’ve gone on and on about the Chanel color BOY and that’s truly the best “your lips but better color” on earth. But this is the color I wear in the winter, called Easy, that has sliiiiightly more color, though it’s still mauvey so it will never look too pink or orange. Yes, that’s the mistake we all make when searching for “natural” lip colors—we think we should be looking for “nudes” when it fact we need to be look for “mauves” because they’re almost almost more natural looking and never look pink or orange or brown. Thank G.
Price: $48
8. The Trio Of Liners
Jones Road The Lip Pencil, Charlotte Tilbury Walk Of No Shame Eyeliner Pencil, Charlotter Tilbury Brow Cheat Refillable Hair-Like Eyebrow Pencil
And speaking of such things. This lip liner is also mauve. This eyeliner is sort of a ruddy berry color (black will age you and brown will bring out your purple tones). And this is the best brow pencil on earth. Don’t forget your brows. They’re the KEY to youth.
Price: $26 for the lip liner, $29 for the eyeliner, $26 for the brow liner
9. Furtuna Skin Due Alberi Biphase Moisturizing Oil
Ugh, I know you’re so sick of me talking about this dumb oil. But sorry. I cannot. I press this onto my chest to banish chest wrinkles. And I press the rest of it onto my face as the very last step in my makeup routine to add some glow. It’s truly the essential last step for me to create that dewy, youthy, no-makeup makeup look. We got you a code so you can’t be too mad about the price. Right?
Use the code CANDIDLY20 to get 20% off.
Price: Starting at $100
10. Charlotte’s Magic Hydrator Mist
If I feel dull and shitty throughout the day, whereas I used to use powder and another layer of makeup, I now just spritz this mist—the best, most hydrating, most enlivening face spray I’ve ever used in my 48 years. To be fair, I’ve only been using face spray for about 36 of those years but still, that’s a long time.
Price: $47
11. Perfume, brow gel, eyedrops, freckles, tweezers
Byredo Rose Of No Man’s Land Roll-On Perfume, L'Oreal Paris Infallible Up To 24H Wear Brow Lamination, Lumify Redness Reliever Eye Drops, Tarte Go With The Faux Freckle Stamp, Tweezerman Tweezers
These are all my bits and bobs that I guess aren’t essential, except that they are and I use them every day. If you are wildly wildly low maintenance I suppose you don’t “need” them but they are all the best versions of what they are, if you’re into that sort of thing.
This perfume rollerball is the most haunting, sad, lovely, slightly dirty rose smell of all time, and it’s my go-to cold weather scent. I wear this in the warm months. This brow gel is the only thing that truly holds my old man brows into a full fluff while not making them crispy and crunchy. These eye drops are the best of all time which I’m sure you already know. These faux freckles are, fine, trendy, but this one stamps them onto your face in a small cluster so they look incredibly realistic and incredibly youthy (yes, I’m making that a word, deal with it). And Tweezerman tweezers which, duh.
Price: $85 for the perfume, $11 for the brow gel, $12 for the eye drops, $26 for the freckle stamp, $24 for the tweezers
12. The Only Brushes I Use, Really
Jones Road The Bronzer Brush, Jones Road The Blush Brush, Merit Brush No. 2
Brushes for me are about what fit in makeup bags. Brands that make brushes as long as a witch’s broom should all be fired. I love this somewhat stubby one for the cream bronzer, this one for any cream blush, and I loooooove this stumpy dual ended brush from Merit for blurring out eyeliner and/or blending out concealer on the other side.
Price: $50 for the bronzer brush, $40 for the blush brush, $20 for the eye brush
That’s the tour. It seems like a lot except it all fits in a tiny makeup bag and I never feel overwhelmed by crap I don’t need.
Oh and the reason there’s no mascara is because I get gorgeous fluttery, natural looking lash extensions every 6 weeks, and it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself. And because I’ve never found mascara I truly, deeply loved. But if you have, I’m all ears.
YOUTHY.
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
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