There is a particular kind of confidence that only truly arrives in one’s 60s – the kind that lets a woman walk a Hollywood red carpet in a ruby-red lip and vibrant pink blush and look like she’s owning it. That is precisely the energy that Sharon Stone brought to the world premiere of The Bluff in Los Angeles earlier this week, making beauty headlines in the process. At 67, in a sharply tailored oversized black blazer and a bronze satin shirt open at the collar, she was the best-looking person in the room. And her make-up look was all her own work.
“I did my own make-up,” Stone tells The Telegraph, of the wash of pink over the cheeks and eyes contrasted with that strong red lip. The actress had attended the premiere at the invitation of her close friend Priyanka Chopra, who stars in the swashbuckling thriller. While Stone’s golden blonde tousled hair was done by her hairdresser Gui, known as @guiniushair on Instagram, her artist’s eye and natural instinct for colour creation, coupled with good skincare and a strong attitude, was the bedrock for the bold and beautiful make-up look.
“I put of course Augustinus Bader and vitamin E on my face every dang day, and I think good thoughts because I hold a strong belief in believing.” If that sounds like the philosophy of a woman who has long since stopped performing beauty for anyone else’s benefit, it is – and the look itself bore it out.
Florrie White, the British make-up artist who has worked with Stone previously – she did her make-up for the British Fashion awards in December – reviewed the premiere pictures with the eye of someone who knows this face well. “I think she’s having fun with make-up, and that’s what it should be,” says White. “Why does it always have to be so anodyne? Why not play with colour, especially in your 60s? She’s on the red carpet. She wants to make a splash. Have fun with it.”
White is right. The relentless march of the barely-there, your-skin-but-better look has left a generation of older women terrified of colour, when really the inverse logic applies: the older you are, the more a wash of pink or a slick of red lip can illuminate the face in a way that beige simply cannot.
In an industry that has long tried to convince women over 60 that the correct response to ageing is quiet, careful invisibility, Sharon Stone remains, as she would surely put it herself, Sharon f---ing Stone. Long may she apply her own make-up.
1. Start with the best foundation
Stone is always attentive to her skin – she is a fan of regular facials with Lord Gavin McLeod-Valentine a global brand ambassador for luxury skincare brand Augustinus Bader – and White says key to this look is having a good foundation. “It’s the perfect base that allows everything else,” she says. “Look after your skin, perfect your skin, and then have fun. Because if the base isn’t right, the colour reads as pantomime rather than polished.”
When White made up Stone in December, she used Giorgio Armani’s Luminous Silk Foundation (£49) on her, building coverage over any uneven areas and then pinpointing with concealer – she’s a devotee of Shiseido Synchro Skin Radiant Lifting Concealer (£36) for targeted work. The technique she applies to all her mature celebrity clients involves layering: foundation applied with a flat brush and buffed in, then set with a fine powder, then a setting spray – Urban Decay All Nighter (£22.13) is a favourite – and finally pressed in with a damp Beauty Blender (£19) “That double-setting technique makes a real difference,” she says. “It fixes the skin, and nothing moves.”
2. Lock in your technique
On the eyes, White reads the Bluff premiere look as “technically masterful beneath its apparent simplicity”. The brows – groomed and brushed upward rather than along – lift the entire eye area and create the impression of more lid space. A pale, skin-toned pencil in the waterline – White swears by the Victoria Beckham Instant Brightening Waterline Pencil (£31) for this – removes any redness and makes the eye appear more open and defined. A very fine liquid liner – Lisa Eldridge’s Kitten Flick Liquid Eyeliner (£25, below) is her preferred tool, for the precision of its nib – is drawn along the roots of the upper lashes rather than across the lid, subtly lengthening the lash line without creating a hard stripe. Alternatively, try Revlon’s ColorStay Micro Easy Precision Liquid Liner in Blackout (£8.99) which has a micro-sized tip and lasts for 24 hours. It is, as White describes it, “technical make-up” working like invisible architecture that means all you see is the effect.
3. Go bold or go home
Time was, a strong red lip came with a rule: minimal colour elsewhere on the face. Stone has thrown out the rulebook to great effect, contrasting a bold red lip with a statement pink blush. Stone’s red lip is a deep, velvet-matte, passionate blood-red and utterly magnificent. It’s the exclamation point on a face that understands exactly what it’s doing. “The lip is such a beautiful deep red,” says White. “It’s like Dracula blood.” White suggests Lisa Eldridge’s True Velvet Lip Colour in Velvet Ribbon (£27) or a L’Oréal Paris red lip like Colour Riche Intense Volume Matte Lipstick in 300 Rouge Confident (£9.99). Beauty Pie’s Velvety Matte Lip Crayon in Rouge La La (£10) is really easy to apply for a quick alternative.
4. Think pink, think everywhere
The pink that floods Stone’s cheeks is not a highly stylised hard stripe of Eighties blusher – it is a luminous, highlighted flush that catches the light and reads as health rather than cosmetics. White’s product of choice for this kind of wash-of-colour application is the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit palette, which she uses across the face, the eyelids and even the forehead to unify everything into a single, glowing whole. “The features come together,” she says. “It’s not three separate things – the dark lip, the pink cheeks, the eye. It’s one look.” With the Edit palette currently out of stock, try Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Sublime Flush or Ethereal Glow (£46 each) or ELF cosmetics Primer-Infused Matte Blush in Always Vibrant (£8), which promises long-lasting colour.
Be prepared to use more than one brush, ensuring it’s clean and fluffy before you wade in. “If you’re using a dirty brush, you’re taking all the oils and other make-up that you might have buffed in and it won’t work as well.”
White, who favours brush collections by the likes of Morphe (£29 for a set of six, above) and Rephr (from £39 for its Brush 05), suggests starting with a large brush and blending all over, from cheeks to forehead, working with a light touch before switching to a smaller angled brush to sweep the colour gently over the eyes to unify the look. “You have to be light-handed with the brush, do it in stages, take your time,” she says. “Always tap the blush brush on the edge of the palette first to get rid of any excess. That’s how to avoid the Aunt Sally look.”