The Eyes Have It

4. Define shape. Bring on the blackest gel pencil liner to power up your eyes. Apply it in small back-and-forth strokes between the upper lashes at the eyelash roots. (Gel pencils are amazingly resistant to smears if your eyes tend to water.) Stroke the pencil more delicately along the bottom lids, from the outer corner inward, three-quarters of the way ... fading out rather than an abrupt cutoff. If the top or bottom line seems wiggly, uneven or messy, smudge the line gently with a sponge-tip applicator to blur the edges, and go back over obvious areas with a clean Q-tip.

Even supermodel Twiggy — now 68 — has updated her famous eye makeup! She lines her lower waterline and upper lids like the pro she is and always has been.

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5. Double or triple line. Next, face the mirror chin up and place a finger on the brow bone to gently expose the inner rim of the eye under the upper lashes. Line the inner rim in short back-and-forth strokes, too. A black gel liner used above and beneath the lashes really makes your eyes pop and restores definition to saggy, crepey or hooded lids. This is not a look for everyone — skip if you have watery eyes or red eyes — but lining the inner lower rims can really add extra drama ... even for daytime. Though for the evening, it's a major win.

Jane Fonda's crisp black liner, fake lashes and soft-blended browns and taupes on lids make her blue eyes pop at 79.

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6. Bring out eye color with shadow. Stick with neutral shadow palettes in a warm or cool range, depending on your eye color. Cool eyes (blue, gray, green) stand out in warm colors, while warm eyes (brown, hazel) blaze in cool colors. The contrast works, and neutral shades in the brown or gray range never look overdone.

7. Customize color. Choose palettes with a mix of light to dark shades and a variety of textures, including matte, satin and shimmery. Mix, blend and layer to build color, to create an endless shade range and for a crisp, clean look or a smoky eye in several ways. Try the Rimmel Magnif'Eyes Shadow Palettes or the CoverGirl TruNaked Eye Shadow Palettes for daily use. And for extra glam, try the Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette or NARS NARSissist Loaded Palette.

8. Contour the crease. Contour your eye crease by blending a medium shade in a cool or warm gray- or brown-based palette over the entire lid — from lashes to crease. Then brush the same color up and above the crease in an arc, using a windshield wiper motion. You should see the color when looking straight ahead into a mirror. This trick pushes back the fleshy overhang just enough to create the illusion of depth and dimension so that your eyes appear firmly sculpted. Don’t go too far up onto the brow bone or near the brows.

9. Lash up. Curl your lashes to open your eyes and counteract sag. Front-load your mascara-depositing more at the roots of the lashes, not the tips, in an inky-black shade. Start at the very roots of the lashes so that there are no gaps between the mascara and the upper inner rims (now lined). Roll the brush up in a wiggling back-and-forth movement to saturate lashes. Feeling adventurous? Learn to do a strip of fake lashes. Any celebrity will tell you that they amplify eyes and work like fluttery awnings.

10. Define brows. Brows anchor your face and frame your eyes for extra attention. Fill and extend the brows with a fine-tipped pencil in a shade from taupe to brown. One thing to note: Our faces become more asymmetrical with age. Don't try to match sets of brows and eyes exactly. The imperfection (one brow higher or thicker, one eye more hooded or narrow) adds personality and character.

For more beauty and style tips for women age 50-plus, check out The Woman's Wakeup: How to Shake Up Your Looks,  Life  and Love by Lois Joy Johnson, and AARP's Beauty & Style issue.