It’s easy not to care about looking old when you’re not old.
Later, it’s just a constant struggle to accept the changes in your face, the face that in your mind is eternally 18 or 30 or whenever you liked it best.
Seeing Carine and Madonna look like women in their 50’s is such a comfort! Get old, you two!
I decided to see the difference between a face in repose and a face smiling.
I made the biggest smile my face could do, and voila! I’m genuinely old.
If you have no expression, you can keep up the illusion of youthfulness.
I am unable to age gracefully because I’m too shallow and preoccupied with appearance. I want everyone to wrinkle up like a prune. The only procedure I would rule out if I were a millionaire is the lip enhancement, because nothing says tragedy like a duckface.
I am waiting patiently for Demi Moore’s face to fall. On the day it does, the drinks are on me!
How do feel you will handle getting old? If you are old, how hard is it for you to combat vanity?
I try to avoid mirrors after a long day. Sad, but avoidance seems my method.
Oh yeah, it’s somehow more bearable when others the same age look so much worse. Living now in Denmark, land of tanning beds, cigarettes and lots of liquored up weekends taught me what damage the 3 things do to a face. It’s funny to see how haggard many of the natives are, as I can fool myself into thinking I’m not so awful in comparison.
(Note: excellent blogger Mette Basset is an exception to the Danish rule!)
Hef proves the saying, “You’re only as old as the women you feel…. and pour more penicillin in the grotto..”
Heidi aka Fuzzy – Yep, others looking worse is the ticket.
I feel it will hit me quite hard. I’m lucky to not look my age at the moment but I feel this will be my undoing as that can’t possibly last. I think when I reach 40 in 2 years I’ll be checking my face regularly for sags, bags and new wrinkles!
I wish I could say I would accept age gracefully, but that ain’t gonna happen. I’ll go kicking and screaming!
Vanity is entirely useful at keeping one going it has a purpose! Can’t wait for the drinking session xx
Sister, you have a great smile and until you had made the comment ‘voila I’m genuinely old’ I honestly hadnt seen anything even approaching ‘old’ (still dont) You look very pretty with that smile on ya dial.
So would everyone stop drawing attention to so called flaws and natural effects of ageing and be grateful for a fully functioning human body, if you are lucky to have one.
The Demi Moore comment I liked…..she’s a ‘love meself’ if ever there was one.
You look younger smiling.
It’s the Nicole Kidman thing, she thinks she looks younger with an uncreased china doll visage, but instead it just looks stern and forbidding. And only old people are stern and forbidding, it’s just the way it is. She might look like a goofball smiling, (and I know I do) but it does look younger, even though it’s crinkly.
I think I will handle growing old fine. I will just be grateful to get the chance.
And for the non-pollyanna answer: I don’t have a lot of vanity about my face, but I think I’m going to have trouble if I/when I stop being sexy to men. I don’t mean all men, just my own peer group (I guess just my own man really), I don’t care about the teenagers. My mother has managed to stay red hot sexy to her own generation (and she’s 70 this month) so I guess it’s possible…
I hate getting old but I don’t want to look like a frozen goon (don’t all women who get too much work done remind you of the goons in Popeye?).
I combat it with lots of sleep and water. So far, it’s working. But ask me again in 10 -15 years, I may join the goon camp after all.
And I think you look better smiling– a beautiful smile is the answer to a joyful and youthful face, wrinkles or not.
I’ve been genuinely surprised at how many signs of aging have crept into my body and face after turning 30. I hadn’t thought I’d be so vain about it (but then we never really know until tested, do we?) but it sucks. I now have two perma-wrinkles running deeply across my forehead not to mention other wrinkles here or there.
I don’t think I’d ever get any procedures…but fuck yes I will buy some pricey wrinkle creams or whatever.
I’ve got a tiny bust so I don’t know this from experience, but I’ve heard from my girlfriends that their breasts started sagging earlier than they expected them to….and that it makes them look/feel older (especially naked, when women LOVE to feel their oldest) than they do for any other reason. Therefore one procedure I can easily understand wanting is the old ‘lift’ although I’ll never need it myself.
Btw, agreed about the duck lips. Gals end up looking like they’ve had gummy worms implanted in their faces…not a good look, especially after they shellac those worms with some super-shiny lip gloss and hit the town to drink fruity cocktails carefully out of straws using only the side of their mouth. So pretty!
I am horrified by how old I look in pictures now. My husband brought home a picture of us that was taken at a dinner a few weeks ago and the face in the picture was not the face of the person I thought I was when it was taken. I actually thought it would come out good. What bothers me more, is that I see my mother staring back at me, and she was not nice to me a good part of the time, so why would I want to look like her? I have not done anything to change myself, just use good products with the latest in skin technology, and have a great hair colorist (he does/travels with Bono). My daughter says I look about 10 years younger than my actual age (I thought the number was at least 20- what a fool I am). I am trying to embrace myself at this time in my life because I feel like I am much wiser now and things would be perfect if I didn’t give a shit about losing the looks.
I read that a Japanese study found that women lose their looks at precisely age 35 plus a couple of months. I think that’s true. I lost the “cuteness” from my face at about that time.
I have to have some nasal surgery on my septum by an ENT doctor, not a plastic surgeon (can’t breather through one nostril) which will not change the shape of my nose, but while I am under, I am thinking “maybe I should change the shape of my nose too, so I don’t see my mother anymore”. My husband is against it- he likes my nose. Plus it is about $8000 more to fix the bump. Oh well. I should just be glad that I am healthy and forget about all this vanity. One good thing- my lips are naturally full, and my slight overbite keeps the top lip sticking out so I don’t need duck lips (which I would NEVER do. Why do you think the Olsens have that weird scowl-smile? It never looks natural.
P.S. Cool nose ring!
Sigh. I am a ripe old 22 and I have the most beautiful (read:ridiculous) fantasy of not so much aging gracefully as crazily. I think when my looks fail me I’m just going to go buck wild and rock the insane grandma. You know, eye-shadow up to my brows, brows drawn on, barbie pink lipstick, like baby jane or some shit…it won’t be pretty, but it will amuse me… and hopefully others…
P.P.S. And I was a person who got asked for ID when I was 30 years old! (It was at a TGI Friday’s in 1987 and the drinking age in NY then was 18). So I thought I would never look old.
I think you are beautiful. I didn’t know you had a percing.
My Grandma had wrinkles, she wasn’t ashamed of them (her culture helped a great deal), I think every wrinkle is like a fight wound we had with life.
i have grey hairs and wrinkles around my mouth and I’m still in my twenties. I’m just beginning to realize that it’s really okay (my first grey came at 23). Regardless, I have started slathering on some cremes in the morning. You have a lovely smile. So warm!
^does grey hair even count so much any more? I found my first white hair when I was 14, and it looks even more obvious given that my hair is black.
I’m not so scared of sagging or getting unattractive (whatever visual appeal I possess is entirely based on my current possession of youth, tits, hips and a full head of hair) but I hope that if I live to 70, I’ll make it there more or less active, with the relevant internal organs in working order and not decrepit. I mean, I won’t like it when my nose gets beakier or my eyebags multiply, but between that and still being able to do stuff, I’ll take being able to do stuff.
only 25, but the greys, oh god, the greys!
Botox and I ignore the tired woman staring back at me in the mirror – she’s not my friend!!
All too many years ago, when I was about 45 and single I had a very nice chat with a woman in a singles bar. She was about 28.
Suddenly, after 20 minutes of pleasant talking about everything besides sex, hooking up or anything flirtatious, she asked me, “Why aren’t you trying to chat up women your own age?”
I was startled as I hadn’t thought the age difference was that great, but I tried to reply with some humor, “I prefer women your age. Your stories are shorter.. besides, when I chase women my age they let me catch them.”
She didn’t bat an eye, didn’t smile, didn’t acknowledge the jokes.
To her I was so ancient and obsolete I was beyond funny.. or she might have been a moron.
If you want to feel old approach the opposite sex or potential employers. They know no mercy.
P.S.
You women are nuts. “Men are always dumping their wives for younger women when they can get away with it!” you complain. “Men are only interested in the physical!”
But who taught us to be that way????
When I was 16 no 16 year-old girl wanted anything to do with me. They wanted those sophisticated 18 year-old boys.
When I was 18 they wanted 20 year-olds. Yes, women do mature faster, something you brag about when you’re young and bemoan when you get clobbered on the other end.
Women taught me early on that the younger ones will appreciate me most.. (..until the paunch set in.)
But I continue to hunt for women 10% younger than myself because you all programmed me that way.
I’ve been telling people I’m “permanently 22” since the day I turned 25 (I had a miniature crisis about such a big-sounding number). Otherwise I’ve clung desperately to the words “tall” and “blonde” because really, I am, and despite not being a gorgeous model, and despite my skin showing the effects of the 15 years I spent engaged to the Marlboro Man, as long as I can throw those words around I will smile a little more and worry a little less about the rapidly approaching wrinkles.
I refuse to panic until 40 sneaks up on me.
Cigarettes and sun are a bad cocktail for skin. In France women smoke a lot.
I’m old, or at least well on my way to it and it’s hard. I mean it really sucks. As a girl who always looked 10 years younger than she actually was, and one who never gave a thought to my looks or getting older, it was a GIANT shock to suddenly find myself, at 45, looking 45! Now, some years later, I still can’t believe it. WTF happened? Any one who thinks it’s gonna be easy is either very young or they are lying to themselves. I console myself with the fact that I am incredibly healthy and I look good “for my age” (hate that phrase with a passion!). Karin
You look fabulous SW.
The reason you wouldn’t have lip injections is because you have GREAT LIPS.
I, however have thin, villainous ones. I had some filler, but a conservative amount. It made a difference, but not a lot. I would want more if there is a next time.
Also, had botox on the lower half of my face to stop it pulling down so hard, and the corners of my mouth with it.
That was really good!!!
Thanks for writing about this. I think it’s very easy for people in their early 20s to claim they don’t care about aging or will fully go out of their way to look “crazy” and a caricature of an older woman. I spent my 20s blissfully unaware of how aging would change my life. In my 30s, I started to notice how women in their 40s or older tended to be considered only for their value as mothers. As someone who has chosen to remain childless, this had me wondering early where I would fit in.
I hit 40 and began to learn what it means to be considered irrelevant. I started to take personally the casually thrown insult by younger women, “Oh god! She looks 40!”, as if 40 was the end of everything interesting or vital and people don’t often live more than twice that long. I notice when out to dinner with younger friends that the server focuses his/her attention on the younger person. I notice commercials and tv programs portraying us as people too stagnant to understand how to use smart phones or learn anything new. It’s all so weird to have maybe more than half my life to look forward to (women in my family live well into their 90s) but to already be considered OLD.
I am 46, am quite fit, have been told many times I look good for my age (and also hate that backhanded compliment). I am lucky to have never tanned and have good genes. What I look like defines me to some degree but it defines me more more to others. As I get older I hope to stay mentally and physically very fit, excited about discovering new places, technologies, people and ideas. I also hope to encourage women younger than me to see that hitting 40 doesn’t mean wanting to shop at Chico’s, listen solely to the music of one’s youth and fear the new. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop using prescription retinol any time soon or miss having the thicker, fuller hair of my 20s.
Oh the duck lips! Freaks me out massively- have you seen La Lohan? I really can’t understand taking the risk of it turning out like that.
I found my first grey hair today, I think. I am pretending that it is blonde as I’m not quite sure either way. Being large of bust I am just waiting for my boobs to droop. I combat it by holding my arms in the air when stood in front of mirrors and sad, which hoists them up sufficiently for now. Other than that, I just avoid mirrors full stop.
This has reminded me of when my mum had some old school friends over who she hadn’t seen in about a decade. They came in, she greeted them and ushered them into the kitchen for drinks- then dashed back to the living room to ask me “I don’t look as old as them, DO I?”. (She didn’t, she has aged wonderfully)
At 35 I can see the change in texture of my skin and sometimes I think, YIKES, I’d better buy myself a face bra/ face brace sharpish before its too late. Most of the time though I don’t really think about it. Once my jowls really start to take shape I might start worrying, but right now I just pray and hope I live long enough to get old.
PS- I have a solitary grey hair on my chinny chin chin that I have named Agatha. I usually just pluck that SoB out the minute she dares to appear but I’m thinking of calling a truce and just letting her live.
JOAN BAEZ!
She is living proof that a woman can remain alluring and beautiful well into her sixties and without the knife.
I also think Carine Roitfeld looks beautiful in that pic, but I have seen others where she looks like a proper child-frightener.
I’m 61 and I feel damn good about myself, especially since (thanks to my naturopathic doctor and to giving up massive amounts of sugar in the form of ice-cream, cookies, pastries, etc.) I’ve lost a spare tire around my waist and belly. I have very few wrinkles – that is thanks to botoxing my frown out (I still can move my forehead muscles) and to that curse of my youth which I share with Sea of Shoes, round face!
I stopped colouring my hair about a year ago, and will never go back. I was utterly bored with doing the roots, re-doing the roots, looking for a product that would cover the grey and not look fake and artificial, so one day I cut it all very short and let it grow out grey. The response was 100% positive. Sure, I looked younger 30 years ago, and I was carded last time at at 34, but really – I’m not losing much sleep over all that crap.
I’ll botox out the frown again in a few months; I don’t know if I would ever consider the knife, but NO to duck lips for sure.
SW, the thing with your smiling picture is – you are too close to the camera and you are looking down; try other angles and keep smiling!
Carine is, IMO, what the French call “une jolie-laide”.
Oh, I forgot to say that I don’t discuss/disclose my age, so people can’t say “you look good for your age” – they don’t know what my age is. I don’t get that american/canadian obsession – people constantly asking how old are you for no good reason. People who need to know, know – my insurance company and my doctor. To everyone else I say sweetly “I’m of legal drinking age”, which usually shuts them up.
Oh Cricket, now I know for sure why I love you. I did exactly the same thing with my hair about 5 years ago. I had naturally black curly hair and, as I have been told by hairdressers, we are the people who go grey. So I stopped doing the dye jobs and made it short and grey and I just love it. So easy to look after. I don’t even comb mine. Just throw a bit of water on the head and wave my fingers through it.
I am 65 and until he was about 14, every birthday my son asked how old I was and I said “29”. Took him a while – I don’t know if he had a maths lesson or a sex education lesson but he finally had a “duh” moment.
Ladies, there are many compensations to being old. I spent all my life being a tough cookie, running companies and being right on the ball. I can still do that, and do, but now I can also do dear little old lady to perfection and you cannot imagine how good the service is to us eccentric types!
I am ambivalent about the botox/face lifts. Sometimes I think I might do a face life (I would like to have my droopy eyes fixed at least) but mostly I think to hell with it. I’m not trying to impress anybody. This is how 65 dames look.
I have a friend who is well over 70 now and has had at least 4 face lifts, that I know of. She looks fantastic but to what end? Her husband still ran off with a 30 year old bimbo a couple of years ago which totally devastated her. After she has spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on facelifts, make up, clothes, etc. on keeping him. The fickle bastard still ran away with the girlfriend to live in Greece on Viagra. Is this something we need?
I have no trouble getting job offers. I still have a few marbles left and can run a small company like nobody’s business. And the big thing is I am loyal, dedicated and can work long hours without having to run off to pick up kids from school and look after children and husbands. I am able to dedicate a lot of time to my job without family distractions.
Truly there is a lot to be said for being old. And furthermore, it happens so we might as well enjoy it!
Andra, I <3 you back! I do too see an upside of being older. I don't try too hard to please anyone, I learned to enjoy little things and not spend time agonizing about "shoulda, woulda, coulda". It's all good because I'm in fairly good health…I'm trying to keep it that way a while longer.
As for your friend left by the bastard husband – she should ran off to Greece with some toy-boy after the second face-lift and enjoy herself. Since she still looks fantastic, maybe it's not too late. After all, age-shmage. It's all in our heads!
It depends on the day. I still look rather youthful to other people at 39…but I see the signs of age even if they are slight since my harshest critic is (of course) me.
If I am dead tired I look older instead of merely “not feeling well” like I did when I was younger. Somedays I feel older than I look and somedays I look older than I feel.
I guess it all depends on the day as to how I feel about aging.
I am old and vain … so I guess combating vanity is going to be beyond me until I close my eyes for the final time. I give in to vanity … yay!
QueenM – I think you will do well, because you’ve avoided too much sun. But of course you will look lovely in black spinster/widow dresses, which is still my personal plan.
Emily Bleak – Tall and Blond would work for me too! Two things I will never be, god damn it.
EJ – I am drawn to mirrors, tragically. I think I need to check that I still exist,
Kellie: Oh god, should I get botox?? I want to be able to make expressions! But if it makes my face stop sagging, I would risk it. Maybe. I thought it was just for foreheads.
Elisabeth – Good, I like your point of view. We will not shop at Chico’s, ever! I also hate to hear “for your age.” It’s so pathetic.
Dru – Doing stuff is what it’s all about. Don’t break your hip is my best advice!
The real andrea – I wonder if hypnosis could cure us of caring about our looks?
Andra – You are my hero in this area. You don’t get sidetracked by bullshit.
Cricket – I stuck my face close to the camera to flaunt my wrinkles! And I want to know more about botox. I had ruled it out because it always makes people’s eyebrows go up..a horrible look.
Elisabeth really nailed it. That’s been my experience as well. It stings suddenly being irrelevant, and there’s no way around it. I just hope to get to a point when it’s no longer a nasty surprise when it happens, but I suspect I’ll never reach that point until I confront the truth of aging.
SW, not true about botox and eyebrows. Mine did not budge one bit. All the botox did is ironing out the perpetual frown – two vertical wrinkles between my eyebrows, not very deep, but still making me look permanently pissed off. They disappeared and for now, I can’t frown. I can move my eyebrows up and down and I don’t have a “frozen” look. Some BS I heard about a “shiny spot” – not true either.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry about all women out there who are not even 50 yet and feel old and irrelevant. I guess that I should just lie down and quietly die at 60? Honestly, ladies, stop doing it to yourselves. You’ll look back one day and think “damn, I looked pretty good then; if I only knew…”
You are a beautiful woman with lovely bone structure and all those wonderful attributes. We are definitely our harshest critics. Because a smile gives radiance and life to the face, it actually makes one look younger in my opinion. So smile all you want, Sister.
For a vain person, I’m doing surprisingly well handling the aging thing (most of the time). I’m fortunate to have, as some say, good genes. And I was wise enough, thank God, to obsessively slather myself in SPF during the years I spent in the Caribbean. The result of all this is I don’t look my age. However, there are instances when a lengthy glance in the mirror produces this: “Okaayyy…Hmm. When did THAT appear?” And: “Let’s just move on and pretend it’s not there, shall we?” If avoiding mirrors doesn’t work (like I said, I’m vain), there’s nothing wrong with a little denial.
Currently I have nothing artificial in my face but I’m certainly not opposed to fillers and Botox, done subtly. I’ll never get anything in my lips because it looks ridiculous.
Grey hair: I have plenty of them and not doing a darn thing to hide them, either. In fact, due to my strange sense of curiosity, I find the greys fascinating on some level. I’ve had color before but grew weary of the maintenance and worried about damage. I’ve made peace with the greys, and we get along fine thus far.
I dread the thought of neck sag, jowls and horrid flabby bits. At least those can be fixed to some degree. And I don’t want to become invisible. More of a concern to me is loss of good health and mental clarity. These are more serious than any perceived loss of physical attractiveness.
Hey, by the way, I posted my awesome Click Beetle belt again! I know you hate it, SW, but that’s okay. Here you go: http://styleodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/03/cashmere-leather-bug.html
I’m doing my best not to age gracefully.
Oh for goodness sakes … no-one is EVER going to be youthful, slender, shiny-haired or poreless enough. If someone doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed then stop trying to shape -shift to fit a particular one. As to Madonna et al – it is part of their job to conform to being ever youthful/ever desirable/whatever. Don’t want to be invisible? Don’t wear beige or tasteful older-woman garb. Avoid people who are so desperate to hold onto ‘youth’ they are terrified of the over 30’s.
Flicking two-fingers at my fifties.
I’m with Wendy B, aging gracefully isn’t for me.
I always wondered – WTF does it mean, “aging gracefully”? For some reason I associate it with a “lady-like” type of woman, wearing beige, pearls, pastel-pink nails and a perm. If that’s it, then NO.
Madonna has to know she ruined her face with the fake cheekbones, right?
I think 40’s are a tough transition for women in our society. Middle age should be wiped out from our vocabulary. I’d like to go from right from “young” to “old” and never hear “middle aged.”
all i know is, my being hot and young now won’t last forever. but when i was in high school i was relatively unattractive, so i know what it’s like to be “passed over.” what i don’t know about is what it feels like to be irrelevant, since i’ve always been very good at what i’m good at (art). i’m going to keep that going. that way, the older and more masterful i get, the more people will care what i have to say. and i may or may not be beautiful, but i’ll be making the world more beautiful anyway.
i’ve also been trying to convince my mom that she should go back to gray, because she’s actually a silver fox! i’m sure no one believes her auburn hair is nautual anyway. no one has burgundy hair!
Kate- What a sane attitude you have!
Tricia – Yeah, “middle aged” is so nebulous and yet it has such a negative ring to it. Whereas old, fuck it, I am definitely old by any definition except to my 95 year old mother-in-law who says “You’re just a baby!”
Cricket9 – I don’t know about aging “gracefully.” I saw Gloria Steinem on TV the other night and she looked really old but still kind of attractive. I would be glad to sign up for that/
I am too busy panicking about how fat I am to worry about how old I am.
Carine Roitfeld looks incredibly rough….really, really tough and haggard. She looks like something very different than a fancy mag editor, but I don’t know what it is.