65 year old makeup newbie

[grammyshammy]

I’ll be 65 in July and am lost when it comes to makeup. I’ve always looked younger than my age so I didn’t really need much. Twelve years ago I began having serious and ongoing medical issues. I hadn’t noticed how much I’ve aged and how much darker the circles under my eyes have gotten. I’ve tried to improve my appearance by buying and experimenting with different concealers and foundations. I’ve read every magazine article about makeup I could find, had makeovers at Macy’s, MAC and Sephora but the end result never looks natural and makes me look pastey. My skin tone is olive with underlying medium tan. I started searching for and watching YouTube videos about makeup and application. I’d make  a list, buy what I could afford  and try to apply it the way they did in the videos. But the makeup ended up looking too pale or too dark. I spend more time than I want to applying my makeup, but then when I look at myself in natural light it looks awful! So I grab some napkins or paper towels and wipe off the makeup I can. I absolutely hate the way I look making going out stressful. Then COVID closed everything down so putting makeup on and going out have become unnecessary. But I don’t want to feel insecure and inferior and hate the way I look. So, how do I find the right makeup color or tone or whatever that blends with my natural skin color if I can’t try it on? Is the makeup video shown on Facebook real? If I take their quiz will they match their makeup to my exact skin color as they claim? I’ve looked into makeup classes by Skillshare etc.,but there are never enough people interested and the classes end up being cancelled. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. 

[Haylos]

With those products that looked unnatural on your skin, the shades of them can be a starting point! If the colors of them matched your skin tone or almost did, they can be used to compare them to those of other products that might work for you. You can use also ask the community for a shade comparison as a question on a product you'd like to try if you get stuck on that. As for the accuracy of what certain shades look like online, I like to look at swatches side-by-side on someone's arm and a plain white background. Often, the color shown in a tube isn't representative of the true color.