Matte foundation is the ugly dad sneaker of makeup. It only looks good on young people.
If you are over 50, run far away from those deliberately ironic shoes (they won’t look cute on you, sorry) and run even faster from skin-deadening evil foundation with a matte finish.
Matte foundation must have been the brainchild of an old and bitter person (trust me, I know a lot of them) who thought “Let’s take the most alluring and evanescent feature of youth -- luminous skin -- and hide it under a thick coat of paint.”
Why the attraction to matte skin? I suppose if you’ve spent your entire life with a shiny face ceaselessly pumping out oil, the idea of a velvety, unreflective surface could be appealing. But really, do you want your face to have the spooky, other-worldly appearance of a synthetic wine cork?
Even if you are blessed with oily skin in your late adult years, you doubtless now have lines around your eyes, which a matte formula will only emphasize. Once you start aging in earnest and your skin wrinkles up and the folds on your neck look like someone’s elbow, you do not need to accelerate the process.
If you want the coverage that foundation brings, I get it. Just go for something hydrating and leave the industrial spackle to Flat Tummy Tea 'models' who look fine on Instagram but alarming in real life.
The only matte item you can wear when you are older is bright lipstick. (And even then, a little dab of balm on top wouldn't kill you.) Anything on the pink to fuchsia continuum or a highly pigmented red I’ll allow. Never, ever a matte nude mouth (you’ll look like a Law & Order SVU corpse) or a matte brown (you’re not Kylie Jenner, so just stop.)
And if I do see you in deadening, matte foundation and you are over 50, I am going to spit on a Kleenex and wipe it all off.