At 62, Demi Moore’s red carpet formula can inspire all midlife women

The 62-year-old actress Demi Moore was a standout winner at Sunday night’s 82nd Golden Globes, taking home the coveted trophy for Best Actress for her cinematic comeback in the gory horror The Substance. “I’ve been doing this a long time – like over 45 years – and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor,” she told the audience during her acceptance speech. Dressed in a custom Giorgio Armani Privé gown, Moore looked every inch the Hollywood star.

While it may be her first formal recognition for acting in 45 years, Demi has stayed loyal to her winning beauty formula. She’s a woman who knows exactly what works for her. While she donned a pixie cut in the early 90s (for Ghostand that Vanity Fair cover in 1991), had a brief flirtation with a blonde bowl cut and even a shaved head for G.I Jane in 1997, over the past 20 years she has found her signature style and stuck to it.

The hair

Demi is proof that the old beauty advice that you should cut your hair shorter as you age is completely outdated; her swishy, waist-length hair has been her signature look since the Noughties. In fact, so confident is she with her longer hair that she chose to make it even longer at the Met Gala in New York last spring, with the addition of 50 inch extensions that reached a dizzying length down to her knee caps. While this isn’t practical and was part of her costume for the occasion, it shows she’s not afraid to chuck the midlife rule book out of the window.

At the Golden Globes the only tweak in her hairstyle was a tiny change in parting from centre to the side. Moore seldom strays from her blow-dried straight hair; when she does, it may be with the addition of a hair accessory such as the big bow she wore at the Palm Springs Film Festival Film Awards last week.

“With the advances in haircare, you can keep your treasured length no matter your age,” explains hairstylist Jake Unger at the Larry King salon. But condition is everything. “As we get older our hair becomes more porous and brittle, so it’s essential to treat the hair with at-home glosses.” Try The Super Gloss in Sheer Glow by Glaze, £16.

The Super Gloss in Sheer Glow, £16, Glaze

The make-up

The quintessential ‘Hollywood’ make-up look hasn’t changed since the 50s: softly powdered skin, a feline flick on the eyes and a matte red lipstick. Moore’s movie star look is much cooler; for the past couple of decades she has preferred a kohled, smudged smokey eye with a pink or coral gloss, which instantly injects some youthfulness in her overall look.

For red carpet appearances she dials up the glamour, of course, but always stays within the same style of make-up. The make-up artist Rokael Lizama, who made up Moore for the Golden Globes, used three shades of the Dior Forever Skin Perfect Foundation Stick, £48. He used one shade to even out her complexion, a shade lighter to use as a concealer under her eyes and a shade two tones darker to contour her cheekbones to make them appear more chiseled. (This is an old make-up artist’s trick of using the same texture across the face for a more natural finish.)

Dior Forever Skin Perfect Foundation Stick, £48, Dior

On the lips, Lizama used the £33 best-selling Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil in Poppy Coral over a nude lip liner. ‘Lip oils’ are the modern equivalent to a lip gloss without the uncomfortable stickiness, and the coral shade used by Moore on the night wasn’t by accident: the warmer shade is a terrific brightening alternative to a pinky-nude lipstick in midlife.

Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil in Poppy Coral, £33, Dior

Her smile

In a video with Harper’s Bazaar in 2019, Moore proclaimed that ‘smiling is the best free anti-ageing secret’. Indeed, Moore has a very natural Hollywood smile, rather than an over-the-top, glaringly white set of piano keys. “As we age our teeth become more yellow, shorter and cracks can appear,” explains the leading cosmetic dentist Dr Rhona Eskander.

“Veneers, both top and bottom, are very popular in Hollywood because it is one of the most immediate ways to look more youthful.” Indeed, Moore has a smile that makes her lips appear fuller and “her smile is wider, which helps to support soft tissues,” explains Eskander.

The tan

Demi is proof that if you like a tan, there’s no reason to tone it down when you hit midlife. “Bronzed skin is in at any age,” offers the tanning expert James Harknett. And the trick to make it look good on mature skin? “Use a self tanner that suits your natural colouring, taking into consideration your hair, eyes and of course your skin.”

To get the Demi Moore tan, Harknett would use the Self Tanning Mousse by Three Warriors, £35. The olive and violet pigments in the tan remove any chance of orange tones and the lightweight foam is much easier to disperse on more mature skin.

Self Tanning Mousse, £35, Three Warriors

The skin

Although we can’t speculate any tweakments that Moore may have had, she regularly sees the £400-an hour London and LA-based aesthetician Keren Bartov, who specialises in ‘laser layering’. Laura Dern, Jennifer Lopez and Julia Roberts are also fans of this treatment, which combines a multitude of lasers to address discoloration, sun spots and redness.

“By layering different laser modalities, we can target specific skin concerns in one session, offering enhanced results without the extended recovery times of traditional treatments,” explains Bartov. This means lots of different devices can be used in harmony in a short amount of time, making Bartov’s treatments wildly popular in Hollywood.

Copper Amino Isolate Serum, £46, Niod

“Demi Moore is the poster girl for how we perceive health and vitality and it’s the quality of her skin that is key,” adds the leading aesthetic doctor Wassim Taktouk. “She may be 62 but she demonstrates perfectly how, if you take a combination approach to wellness, it is possible to achieve natural, undetectable, healthy-looking results.” Taktouk is a fan of the energy-based device Exion for midlife skin.

Skincare is important, too: For the Golden Globes Moore used the Capture Day Crème by Dior before make-up application. She has also professed her love of the £46 Copper Amino Isolate Serum by Niod, which contains peptides to firm the texture of the skin. Whatever is in Moore’s current rotation is certainly working: at 62, she’s looking better than ever.

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