8 Tips on how to look younger than your age

As the years tick by, more and more we find ourselves wishing we had our own personal time machine to wind back the years and the effects of them on our appearance. There's a lot to be said about growing old gracefully, (after all, our lines and wrinkles are testament to the fun, chaotic, beautiful lives we've had), but knocking a few years off our assumed age can be a great confidence booster. What's better than a stranger guessing your age and having you down as ten less than you really are?! At Beauty and Tips, we're all for cheating time a little bit, and we're here to share our best kept secrets with you. Read on for our 8 top tips that teach you how to look younger than your age, minimal effort required.

Take care of your skin
Whether you were a party girl in a past life, or still love to have a little bit too much fun, your skin is the first thing that will give you away. Lines, wrinkles, crow's feet and loss of elasticity are inevitable effects of growing older, and they can begin to show at any age. The best way to fight further ageing in your skin is to apply sun screen on the daily and keep it moisturised. Using a sun screen will protect your skin from the sun's harmful UV rays, which cause dryness, age spots, loss of elasticity as well as a whole host of more serious health problems. Start lathering on the sun block as early as you can, and make sure that your skin is well moisturised by using a serum AND a moisturiser every single day.    Love the skin you're in! This is probably one of the most important tips on how to look younger than your age.

Bags are for shopping, not eyes
A rough's night sleep, stress and rubbing the delicate eye area all contributes to the appearance of dark under-eye circles, which can make you look a lot older than you really are. The best way to combat these shopping bags under your eyes is of course to make sure you're grabbing 8 hours sleep a night, but when work piles up or the club calls, you need a quick fix. So our tip on how to look younger than your age is simple: next time you wake up with dark rings, run two teaspoons under icy water until cold, and hold on the eye area for two minutes. The coolness helps blood vessels to constrict, lessening the purple/red colour, and feels very refreshing on the skin. You'll be looking bright eyed and bushy tailed in no time!

Choose the right concealer
When you feel like your complexion looks a bit tired, your first instinct may be to reach for the heavy-duty concealer. In reality, using heavy products only really works if your overall make-up is dramatic and heavy too. For any other occasion, waxy concealers can be too much and actually make you look older than you are, as the product congeals and settles in fine lines and wrinkles. So a good tip on how to look younger than your age is to find a creamy concealer that doesn't sit on top of your pores, but instead blends seamlessly, diverting attention away from problem areas.

Perk up
Our faces aren't the only places to show our age. In fact, your derriere could be letting the game away. As we get older, our bottoms tend to lose a bit of their bounce as gravity takes its toll. To put the perk back into your bottom, choose jeans with no more than 98% cotton in them, and allow the other 2% for a stretchy fabric like Lycra. Trousers with less than 2% stretch are more likely to wear out and go saggy after just a few wears, so always check the label!

Oil up
Dry and frazzled hair adds years to your look, and in a cruel twist of fate, dyeing hair relentlessly to cover greys can leave it looking particularly lacklustre. So a good tip on how to look younger than your age it to cheat your way to a youthful, seemingly untouched head of hair, for this it's best to introduce a hair oil to your after-shower routine. Adding an oil like Argan or Moroccan oil to the ends of hair when wet protects it from heat damage and repairs the proteins that make your hair look strong and healthy. Just pour a couple of drops into your palm, rub your hands together and lightly stroke onto towel-dried hair. You'll notice the difference instantly, as your hair will look noticeably glossier and healthier.

Get an eye-lift with eyeshadow
Correcting drooping or hooded eyelids may sound like a painful, expensive trip to the surgeon's office is in store, but it's actually quite easy to mimic the effects of an eye-lift yourself using eyeshadow. So one of great makeup tips on how to look younger than your age is to apply a creamy, light colour to the part of your eyelid closest to the upper lash line, and a darker colour to contour the crease above where the lid is dropping. The lighter colour will make the bottom part of the lid more visible, and the darker shade will make the drooping part of the eye recede. The result? A wide-eyed look that hides your age.

Thicken your brows
As we get older, our eyebrows get more and more sparse. It doesn't help that most of us spent our teenage years mercilessly over-plucking, either. So a good tip on how to look younger than your age is to fake thick, luscious brows, and for this grab an angled eyeliner brush and a taupe eyeshadow that matches the colour of your natural brow. Brush on feathery, upward strokes of colour in patchy areas, mimicking the look of natural eyebrow hair. Finish off your masterpiece with a pigmented eyebrow gel, which will lock in the eyeshadow and add tiny fibres to the brows, making them look even thicker.

Luminize your look
The most youthful of faces are those which radiate luminosity. If you weren't blessed with dewy, glowing skin, cheat your way there with a luminizing serum. So a great tip on  how to look younger than your age is to choose a serum with an AHA and/or hyaluronic acid in the ingredients list, and this should be top of your priority list if you want to show off bright, supple skin. Hyaluronic acid draws water to the skin and locks in moisture, so any moisturiser you apply over the top gets a massive boost. Using a product containing an AHA regularly will leave your skin looking peachy and glowing, so what are you waiting for?

We hope you enjoyed these tips on how to look younger than your age, and if you have any of your own please share them in the comments below.

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