Essential Jewelry Tips For Women Over 50

Here's what to wear based on the shape of your face.

By
Published July 19, 2024
Gold jewelry with blue and green gemstones on dark brown wood surface
The Interior Archive x Trunk Archive/Tim Beddow

As we embrace our age, our sense of style evolves, but one thing remains timeless: jewelry. Beyond mere adornment, jewelry is a reflection of our journey, our stories and our individuality.

For women over 50, wearing jewelry isn't just about fashion; it's about celebrating life's milestones, expressing personal taste, and adding a touch of class to every outfit. But can it age us? Is it outdated? Wrong for our face shape or skin tone? Let’s delve into the art of accessorizing after 50 and explore how jewelry can symbolize vitality and graceful aging.

“It’s important to look at the jewelry you’ve been wearing all these years and reevaluate how it looks now,” says Cathleen McCarthy, jewelry specialist and founding editor of The Jewelry Loupe, a high-end jewelry blog.

The Right Jewelry for Your Face Shape

If you don’t already know your face shape, tie your hair back and look in the mirror to determine if yours is oval, heart, round or square. Once you know your face shape, you can better match it to the right jewelry.

Oval Shape: You can wear most jewelry, but rounded hoops and chin-length chandelier earrings may add width around the jawline. Chunky, oversized studs will help your face look less oblong. Opt for shorter necklaces, which help cut length from your face.

Round Shape: To contrast roundness, try long necklaces that hang low on the chest and angular geometric earrings shaped like rectangles and trapezoids.

Heart Shape: Wear a choker or short necklace to add roundness to the chin. Teardrop, triangle or heart-shaped earrings that end at chin level also create a sense of fullness around the jaw.

Square Shape: Wear pendant necklaces that draw attention away from an angled jawline. Try medium hoops or drop earrings that draw the eye up and down and soften a square jawline.

The Right Jewelry for Your Skin Tone

Remember Cosmo quizzes like “Is Your Complexion a Fall or Summer?” We’re not going there, but knowing whether your skin tone is warm or cool can help when choosing jewelry. Look at the inside of your wrist.

Warm Skin Tones: Warm skin tones typically have a greenish tint to veins. They may have yellow, golden or apricot undertones. The most flattering and timeless picks for warm tones are yellow gold, rose gold or copper and gems such as coral, turquoise, amber, citrine, garnet, alexandrite, morganite, peridot and yellow diamonds.

Cool Skin Tones: Cool tones have a blue or purplish tint to veins and have pinkish or red undertones. Most people with dark or tan skin are cool-toned. You may look ageless in silver, platinum and white gold. Gems include pearls, sapphires, amethysts, rubies, emeralds, aquamarine, tourmaline, opal and tanzanite.

Neutral Tones: If your skin tone is a mix of blue and green, you have a neutral tone. Lucky you! Most all jewelry is complimentary.

Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend

Diamonds look great on every skin tone. “Remember, you tend to get more sallow as you age,” says McCarthy, “The colors you can carry off alter a bit as you may lose some of your golden or pink undertones, especially in winter.”

Jewelry to the Rescue

“Earlobes lose elasticity,” says McCarthy, so be very careful of what you’re putting in your ears. To deal with sagging lobes or stretched piercings, “Say goodbye to heavy earrings that you could wear in your 20s and 30s. Or choose super-light materials, not tiny little earrings, but ultra-light ones made from balsam wood or other weightless metals.” When shopping online, look for descriptors like “feather light.”

McCarthy says if your neck isn’t what it used to be, necklaces with more length can give the illusion of an elongated throat.

Rings may be one piece of jewelry that’s ageless. “One problem women have as they get older is the middle knuckle expands, so rings may not fit anymore, and if you do get a ring over the knuckle, it spins because it’s too large for the finger." McCarthy says to try open rings that are adjustable. You can also have your jeweler put sizing balls on the inside of the shank to keep a ring from spinning.

“But there’s no reason to reduce your funkiness,” she says. If you have multiple piercings, try studs and ear-cuffs to keep up your look. “You don’t have to shrink back because you’re 50.”

Quick Tips

Layers are in. Wear three thin chains of varying lengths, a choker with two longer chains or two different-length pendants.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match metals.

Pick either a statement necklace or earrings, not both.

Color around your face is very flattering.

Toss or donate outdated items — corded pendants, colored beads, fabric chokers and stick pins.

As Coco Chanel once said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take at least one thing off.”

Do you have a piece of jewelry you wear every single day? Let us know in the comments below.

Jennifer Nelson writes about health, home, work and money – essentially life, for brands, consumer publications and websites. She also edits health and medical content. When she’s not writing she hangs out with Phineas, her Beagle-Hound rescue, works on endless projects around her 40-year-old house, reads, travels and bikes to the beach.