Boomer Women: Get Your Glow On

There’s a fine line between glowing and every other light show you can switch on with make-up this season, sparkling especially.

And the fine line is, well, fine lines.

The operative word for women of a certain age: illumination.

Let the millennials go metallic and get their glitter on.

The effect you want is candlelight, not twinkly Christmas tree.

Boomers do best with the kind of organic gleam you get from an invigorating spin class, a flute of bubbly beside the fire or kisses from the grandkids on Christmas day.

Or from a tube of Gosh CC Cream Illuminating Foundation.

Gosh Cosmetics, a Danish line available at Shoppers Drug Mart, is just one of countless brands with products that help older women look radiant but not spangly.

Jane Iredale’s Glow Time Full Coverage Mineral BB Cream BB5 promises to promote luminosity while at the same time covering blemishes, minimizing pores, brightening skin and disguising wrinkles. What more could you want? Maybe the real question is, what more could a cream conceivably do?

Here’s another question: How can you possibly resist a cream in a stick that’s called Watt’s Up and claims to be a “soft focus highlighter that turns on ‘watt’ ya got with a delicate champagne glow that’s gorgeous.”

Watt’s Up is the brainchild of Benefit Cosmetics, a dab hand at selling trendy products with puns. Watt’s Up joins their illustrious line of luminescent enhancers and highlighters, including the equally punny High Beam and Sun Beam.

Less playful but a reliable standby is Dr. Haushka’s Translucent Bronze Concentrate which really does “enhance and refine” while imparting a natural glow.

But if you absolutely must indulge in some sparkle for the season, snap up some glittery nail polish that’s still subtle. Yes, glitter and subtle can be compatible, at least in the form of nail polish. Vinylux proves it with Locket Love #128, which catches the light and seems mostly golden with silver gleams. Or is it the other way around? See what I mean? Subtle!

There’s also a way to twinkle and sparkle and glow that’s absolutely right at any age.

You’ve guessed what it is, right?

You know it doesn’t come from a tube or a little bottle with a brush. You don’t look for it at the cosmetic counter.

It’s the twinkle in your eye when you manouevre someone under the mistletoe, the sparkle of snowflakes on your eyelashes and the glow of joy in being alive to greet another year.