Counter Culture

5 minute read

Recently, at a summit arranged by Maria Shriver to talk about ageing, Jamie Lee Curtis said “This word anti-ageing has to be struck, I am pro-ageing. I want to age with intelligence, and grace, and dignity, and verve, and energy.”

She also recently wrote an Instagram caption about the styling for her new character in the upcoming A24 film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, where she plays a woman working in an office, looking like a regular woman in her midlife. She said, “In the world, there is an industry—a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar industry—about hiding things. Concealers. Body shapers. Fillers. Procedures. Clothing. Hair accessories. Hair products. Everything to conceal the reality of who we are. And my instruction to everybody was: I want there to be no concealing of anything.”

All hail the queen!

Recently too, I’ve had a few conversations with friends about their experiences as a consumer in the beauty industry as a woman over 40. One cited the fact that she has spent hundreds of euro on ‘mistakes’, i.e. purchases that were products totally ill-advised for her skin type and tone. She feels that the makeup artists and retail staff working on beauty counters are all under 30 and solely focused on their own age group and specific beauty trends that women over 40 and beyond are just not interested in.

Another friend asked me ‘why all the concealer?’ ‘why do we have to put it all over our faces now?’ as a result of another encounter on a counter where she was advised to follow some sort of Kardashian style concealer-overload effect that only works in the studio when angled and lit correctly. Real-life, right?! No.

So here’s the thing I got to thinking about - in this Heyday community we are all a part of the new midlife movement that is rising - living life authentically and as we see fit. Sovereign women, leaning into each other and ourselves, learning about what holds us back or down and taking steps to make changes as we see fit. That’s what midlife is all about - reassessing and reframing life so far, and looking at what’s coming next and the kind of life we want to live for the rest of our lives. We are tuning in to our health, our purpose and our communities to empower us to live emboldened. It’s both an edit and an upgrade. And it’s wonderful.

Why then, when we come up against certain structures are we still being told we must play it plain and conceal ourselves? Quite literally.

Why sell concealer to someone who doesn’t feel her eyes or pigmentation are an issue? Why create an opaque, unnatural canvas on someone who wouldn’t wear that in a million years - just to stay on brand and on target for a sales sheet? Why talk about covering up and concealing skin that is just fine?
Why tell women that what they look like as they age is not good enough?
Why not listen to them?

Isn’t that a sure-fire way to lose a client?

I worked on beauty counters for years. I was head makeup artist for both Bobbi Brown and Stila Cosmetics and I worked for Space NK in London for a few years too. In those years I learned the difference between a customer and a client. A customer is a one-off win, a drive-by sale. A client is a relationship built on trust. I had lots of clients and very few customers. I found it difficult to hawk any product to any woman as I knew she didn't want or need it. And that felt bad to me. I knew the value of listening to the person in front of me and creating a look for them based on their needs and wants and ultimately making them feel great about themselves.

Beauty in midlife is a minefield for many. We still feel like the self we’ve always been, but the mirror shows a different story. The mirror often shows pigmented skin, darker eyes, and life lines. Our skin may be finer or more sensitive or perhaps have spots. Midlifers are the generation of contrasts - many of us have acne and wrinkles at the same time! The mirror can take work for many.

And whilst we are leaning into ourselves in tandem emotionally and psychologically and often feeling fitter and better than we have in years due to knowing what our bodies really need to feel well, we are still subject to a sort of ageism on beauty counters - being sold ‘anti-ageing’ products to reduce lines and hide all signs of living a life.

I’m with Jamie Lee Curtis on that term - as I’m sure you are. Anti-ageing means pro-youth. It denies the very act of living. We are all ageing and are lucky to. Time is up for manipulating and selling into our insecurities - beauty needs a new narrative.

Canadian brand 19/99 is doing just that, with their aim to blur the lines between generations. Personally, I love their look - all natural skin with pops of colour as expression. There’s been a nice wave of online beauty brands popping up over the last few years with a really fresh aesthetic and product formulation that is actually very good for midlife and older skin. Trinny, Victoria Beckham Beauty and French makeup artist Violette all have great products, but can be a barrier to shopping online this way if you can’t feel the product.

Makeup is a wonderful thing - it can make us feel really great. Being a professional makeup artist for many years and running a school of makeup courses where we taught women how to do their own makeup in a way that suited them - I have seen first-hand, so many times, how transformative the right makeup can be for someone. But makeup with a light hand, an aesthetic eye, products with the right formula and most importantly an understanding of who the woman is and what her life is like is what truly transforms.

Is she someone wanting to play with colour? Let her tell you.
Is she someone who likes to keep it simple and classic? Let her tell you.
Is she someone who wants light and sheer, does she like retro styles, does she want to learn new techniques? Let her tell you.
Is her skin in great shape or needs enhancement? Let her tell you what she wants.

Involve her, don’t conceal her or create a new version of her that she doesn’t want.

By calling out the counters, I am not trying to slate them or the people who work there, I just see some lost potential for women who want to enjoy and play with makeup but who are wasting money and ultimately falling out of love with it due to some bad experiences of not being seen and heard in that environment. It’s also lost potential commercially for the brand.

I love how brands have worked hard to extend their shade ranges to be skin inclusive (yes, it took forever), but I think that ageism is still so rife in the experience of beauty retail. Huge campaigns featuring older models is one good thing, but when you are sitting, perched on a stool in the middle of a department store as someone 20 years younger than you chimes along with their sales patter and you can tell isn’t really even looking at you, you know it’s time for the next bit of beauty diversity - midlifers on counters! Midlifers who see the real you in all your gorgeous glory, who will meet you where you are and have a bit of fun with you as they make you feel seen, heard and beautiful, now doesn’t that sound good?

Jamie Lee Curtis would be on board, don’t you think!

Counter Culture

5 minute read

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