How to Do Old Age Makeup Tutorial in 12 Easy Steps

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Expert makeup tips to add wrinkles, age spots, & more

Co-authored by Nini Efia Yang and Maryana Lucia Vestic, MFA, M.Phil.

Last Updated: October 24, 2025 Fact Checked

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• Base Makeup & Wrinkles
|
• Aging Your Eyes & Nose
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• Aging Your Mouth
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• Aging Your Neck
|
• Video
|
• Q&A
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• Things You'll Need

|Show more |Show less

Applying old-age makeup can enhance a costume or theater production by making you look more convincing as an elderly person. Old age makeup may seem complicated, but it’s actually quite straightforward. Keep reading to learn how to add wrinkles to age your eyes, nose, mouth, and neck with helpful tips from makeup artist Nini Efia Yang.

How to Apply Old Age Makeup

Makeup artist Nini Efia Yang suggests using primer before applying your base foundation so your look lasts longer. Then, do the following:

1. Apply liquid foundation over your face.
2. Highlight your face’s prominent areas with a makeup sponge and highlighter.
3. Trace over natural folds or lines with brown eyeshadow or eyeliner.
4. Add crow’s feet to the outside edges of your eyes and darken the inner eyelids.
5. Shade and add lines to the side of your nose.
6. Create vertical lines around your mouth and wrinkles on your lips.
7. Contour the sides of your neck and emphasize any lines or folds.

Steps

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Applying Base Makeup & Adding Wrinkles

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1. 
   1
   Apply a layer of liquid foundation. Start with a clean, dry face and then apply liquid foundation to your entire face using a makeup sponge. This helps create an even canvas on which you can build your old-age makeup look. After applying liquid foundation, set it with a layer of translucent powder.

   • Apply the same foundation to your neck if you intend to age your neck area, as well.
   • Yang suggests taking it a step further by using liquid latex for more realistic-looking wrinkles. To apply latex makeup, “spread the liquid latex over your skin, then lightly pick at it as it dries to create wrinkles. Then, just go over the latex with your foundation.”
   • Yang goes on to say that “foundation is best with a primer,” whether you’re applying old-age makeup or not. A primer can help your foundation last longer,” which can make a big difference in how long your old age makeup lasts.

   Meet the wikiHow Expert

   Nini Efia Yang is a makeup artist based in San Francisco, California, and is the owner of Nini's Epiphany, a makeup and hair studio offering makeup and hair styling services for clients as well as classes.
2. 
   2
   Apply highlighter to the most prominent areas of your face. Identify the most prominent areas of your face and then apply highlighter to sharpen those areas using a makeup sponge.

   • Highlight your face in areas that droop, like the top of your forehead or hairline, your browbone, the tops of your jowls, your chin, the center and tip of your nose, and your cheekbones.
   • Choose a highlighter that is 1 to 2 shades lighter than your foundation.
   • Try looking at yourself in the mirror with a bright light shining on your face. This can help you identify the most prominent areas of your face. Since you want to sharpen these areas, apply highlighter to these prominent areas.
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3. 
   3
   Trace your face’s natural lines with a dark brown eyeshadow or eyeliner. Contour using a makeup brush to darken the most recessed areas of your face so they look even more recessed. Look in the mirror to identify these areas, which include the center of your forehead, your temples, the hollows of your cheeks, below your chin, the underside of your jowls, and your eye crease.

   • Nostrils: The folds that extend down from your nostrils to the area just below and outside of your chin become deeper as you age. To create this effect, go over these lines with a dark brown eyeshadow or liner.
   • Mouth: Apply brown eyeshadow or liner around your mouth to begin creating the appearance of wrinkles on your face.
   • Lips: Create lines extending down from the corners of your lips to your chin. The area below the outer corners of your lower lip also deepens as you age.
   • Chin: Deepen the horizontal fold between your chin and lower lip. The fold between your lower lip and chin also deepens as you age. Line this area with the dark brown eye shadow or liner.
   • Gently blend the lines you have created to make them seem more natural, but avoid blending them in too much, because they may become too subtle.
4. 
   4
   Create age spots with dark brown eyeshadow. Carefully add small, irregular spots on the skin to create the look of age spots. Focus your age spots along the forehead and cheek areas, and make sure to blend the edges so they look natural and less like they’re drawn in.

   • If your old age look is a full-body transformation, add age spots to the tops of your hands as well.
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Part 2

Part 2 of 4:

Aging Your Eyes & Nose

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1. 
   1
   Add or emphasize lines around your eyes. Creating older-looking eyes requires adding wrinkles to mimic the effects of aging. Do this by lining the areas around your eyes with dark brown eye shadow or eyeliner.

   • Start by creating pockets under your eyes. Draw lines that trace over the lower part of your eye sockets and above your cheekbones. This will help to create the appearance of sagging eyes.
   • Draw lines extending from the inner part of your upper eye socket as well, and out past the edge of your eyelids.
   • Add vertical “worry” lines between your eyebrows. You can also extend these lines down the bridge of your nose to increase wrinkles there.
   • Blend these lines gently by smudging them with the brush or with your fingers.
2. 
   2
   Add crow’s feet to the outer edges of your eyes. Use the eyeshadow or eyeliner to add these lines and extend them out and away from your eyes, before blending them gently.

   • Squinting your eyes may help you identify the natural folds in your skin next to your eyes. Then, just fill in these lines with the eyeshadow or liner.
   • If you want your old age makeup to look more extreme or are applying stage makeup to look old, avoid blending the lines at all.
3. 
   3
   Add medium brown eyeshadow to the inner eyelid. Next, you will need to deepen the color of your eyelids to give the appearance of sunken eyes, which often happens with old age. Use medium brown eyeshadow to fill in the inner part of the eyelid.

   • Try to make the inner eyelid look darker than the outer eyelid—this will help to give the appearance of sunken eyes and harsher features.
   • Additionally, use a warm white eyeshadow or eyeliner to highlight the outer edge of the upper eyelid, which will intensify the sunken eye look and give the appearance of sagging. Just make sure that you do not apply the highlighter over the dark lines you have already created.
4. 
   4
   Line or shade along the sides of your nose. Line or shade the sides of your nose so it looks somewhat pointy and narrow. Darken the sides of your nose to make it seem sharper and longer. Draw a line extending down from the ridge of your nose near your inner eye to the nostril. Then, smudge and blend this line to make it seem more natural.

   • As you age, your nose will begin to look larger, sharper, and harsher.
   • You can also add a few lines extending between your inner eye and the ridge of your nose. This will help to create the appearance of wrinkles on your nose.
   • For even more definition, try drawing lines extending from your nostrils to your upper lip, just alongside the natural ridges between your nose and upper lip.
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Part 3

Part 3 of 4:

Aging Your Mouth & Lips

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1. 
   1
   Create fine vertical lines above and below your lips. To create the appearance of fine lines on your lips, purse your lips and use a dark brown eyeliner or eyeshadow to fill in a few lines above your lips. Keep them short—just draw lines that are about a centimeter (1/4 inch) long.

   • After you relax your lips, you should have some lines above your lips that look like wrinkles.
   • Blend the lines to make them seem more natural. Use your fingers to gently smudge them.
2. 
   2
   Apply a layer of matte pink lipstick or neutral lip liner. Applying a layer of matte pink or nude lipstick creates a canvas for adding wrinkles on and around your lips. Don’t go outside the lines of your lips. It is okay if your lips look a bit thin.

   • If you want your older character to wear darker lipstick, apply it after you’ve used makeup to age your mouth and lips.
3. 
   3
   Create wrinkles on the prominent parts of your lips using a highlighter. Purse your lips and apply highlighter only to the most noticeable areas of your lips. Dab the highlighter onto these areas using a brush or makeup sponge.

   • After you relax your lips, they should appear to have wrinkles.
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Part 4

Part 4 of 4:

Aging Your Neck

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1. 
   1
   Contour along the sides of your neck. Use dark brown eyeshadow or eyeliner and a makeup brush to contour the sides of your neck, as well as any soft spots on the neck. This will help create shadows that help highlight areas of your neck that can shift or sag with age.

   • Use a contouring shade that is 1 to 2 shades darker than your foundation, as you did when contouring your face.
   • Contour under your natural jawline to create the appearance of more folds in the skin.
   • Be sure to apply a layer of foundation on your neck before contouring it.
2. 
   2
   Line the natural creases in your neck to create horizontal wrinkles. Use a dark brown eye shadow or eyeliner to emphasize vertical and horizontal lines on your neck.

   • Add warm white highlights with a cream highlighter to bring even more attention to the folds and lines you’ve created on your neck.
   • Once finished, apply a pressed powder over the face and/or neck to set the old age makeup look, or set your makeup using a finishing spray.
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Community Q&A

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• Question

  Why would someone want to look so old?

  

  Community Answer

  Most likely someone would do this for theater, cosplay, or Halloween, or even just for fun.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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  Not Helpful 17 Helpful 65
• Question

  Do I use cream or powder eye shadow?

  

  Community Answer

  Whichever which suits your skin type and tone will be good, though cream eye shadow will be better to make your skin look more aged.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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  Not Helpful 4 Helpful 26
• Question

  How do I get my brows like that?

  

  Leah Holt

  Community Answer

  Using eyeshadow, choose a black that is darker than your eyebrow color, and place that on your eyebrows do make them look like the picture.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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  Not Helpful 5 Helpful 2

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Things You'll Need

• Liquid foundation
• Highlighter
• Dark brown eyeliner
• Dark brown eyeshadow
• Medium brown eyeshadow
• Warm white eyeshadow or eyeliner
• Makeup sponges
• Makeup brushes
• Matte pink or nude color lipstick or lip liner
• Pressed powder
• Finishing spray (optional)
• Liquid latex (optional)