We all want to look our best and feel confident and attractive, especially as we age. Appearances count and in an image-obsessed era, there are easy ways to highlight your natural beauty and accentuate your best assets. There are also ways that instead of enhancing your beauty, you are making yourself look older and less attractive.
1. Aged Skin
Our skin naturally loses its texture, firmness, and fullness as our collagen production slows down with age says cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Carole Hazan. There are also other lifestyle factors that trigger premature skin aging like sun damage, smoking, stress, lack of sleep, and a poor diet. It’s important to adopt an anti-aging skin routine as you get older to boost collagen production and ensure your skin is nourished and hydrated.
2. Yellow Teeth
Stained or yellow teeth can make you look older and less attractive than you are. The shade of your teeth is determined largely by genetics like your eye color according to Allure. Discoloration of the teeth is usually a result of poor oral hygiene, but smoking, eating, and drinking foods with high tannins like red wine, balsamic vinegar, and caffeinated drinks including coffee, tea, and sugary sodas. A deficiency in vitamin D can also contribute to yellow teeth.
3. Nail Neglect
Neglecting the health and appearance of your fingernails and toenails can make you look unkept and unattractive. Keep them well-manicured as the finishing touches count. As we age the nails become more brittle and are prone to cracks, breaking, and developing ridges and fungus conditions. Keep your nails dry and nourish your hands and feet with biotin and vitamin E-rich moisturizers.
4. Skin Conditions
It’s not just aging that makes you look older and less attractive. Dull, dry, congested skin, large pores, and skin conditions like breakouts, redness, rosacea, and uneven textures create a gray and craggy appearance. Drink plenty of water, eat moisture-rich foods, exfoliate and moisturize regularly to improve the texture of your skin, reduce large open pores, and rejuvenate your appearance.
5. Heavy Foundation
Applying a thick layer of foundation or using a heavy matte base can make your skin look cakey. When your foundation is too thick it will settle into the crevices of fine lines and wrinkles to make them more obvious and you less attractive. Make sure you also use a base that matches your skin tone as anything too light or dark looks unnatural and unattractive.
6. Unruly Brows
Ungroomed, unruly brows make you look like you aren’t trying. Your eyebrows frame your face and when well-groomed they will open up your eyes and help disguise a droopy brow. If your eyebrows are sparse or you over-plucked when you were younger get a professional brow job or use a brow pen with fibers to help plump and shape them.
7. Unhealthy Diet
Beauty does come from the inside out. So if your diet consists of junk foods, unhealthy fats, and too much sugar, it will impact your physical and mental health and wreak havoc on your skin. When you lack essential vitamins and nutrition it causes inflammation in the body which ages you faster and makes your skin look dull and lifeless.
8. Wrong Bra
Most women are wearing the wrong bra size — around 80 percent in fact— and when you wear an ill-fitting bra, you aren’t getting the right support, and your clothes don’t hang right. A sagging bust-line makes you look shapeless, as well as bigger and older than you are.
9. Bad Hair Day
Your hair becomes drier and brittle as you age and also loses volume. If your hairstyle is also out of date, or worse, you don’t have a style, it can add years to your face and make you look less attractive. A good haircut that suits your face shape will make you look more polished, on-trend, and youthful. Dyeing your hair too dark or too light or in an unflattering shade for your skin tone will also make you look worse.
10. Unflattering Lipstick
Our lips also lose their fullness with age, and you can make them look even thinner by wearing dark lipsticks, especially blue-based reds. Dark, heavy matte shades also highlight flaws, dry lips, and fine lines around the mouth. Go for a moisturizing lip balm with a hint of tint that matches your natural lip.
11. Black Overload
Head-to-toe black can look chic, slimming, and classic when you’re young, but as you age an all-black outfit can come across as harsh and severe. Don’t wear black if it’s not your color and it’s best to break up an all black look.
12. Poor Grooming
If you don’t bother to pay attention to your grooming you will look unkept, a little lazy, and definitely unattractive. Stained, crinkled clothes, bad breath, discolored teeth, facial hair, ungroomed locks, poor personal hygiene, dirty nails, and dry flaky skin all add up to looking less than your personal best and people will notice.
13. Out of Style
You don’t have to spend a fortune to look chic and put together but it’s important to wear clothes that suit your shape and skin tone and aren’t outdated. Baggy, oversized, shapeless clothing can make you look bigger and frumpy and this equates to looking older, less attractive, and out of style. Pay attention to the latest fashion trends, dip into age-appropriate ones, and always make sure your shoes, bags, and accessories are on trend and not worn out.
14. Excessive Tanning
Overexposing your skin to the sun’s harsh UV rays or obsessively doing tanning bed sessions can cause premature aging and skin damage. The safest tan comes in a bottle but it’s important to proceed with caution. When you overdo the self-tanner you can look totally unnatural and there’s nothing attractive about that.