Jennifer Cartwright
The definition of “old” is becoming progressively younger. This summer, Love Island competitors in their twenties were age-shamed for ‘looking older’ by a merciless fanbase. Not only this, teenagers and younger are buying skincare products to fight wrinkles they don’t have yet.
With the anti-ageing industry worth an estimated $73 billion, many of us invest in products to make us look younger. In pursuit of ageing gracefully, we seek creams, masks, and injections to make it seem like we have not aged at all.
Anti-Ageing Desperation
American multi-millionaire Bryan Johnson, 47, injects himself with donated blood from his teenage son in a bid to chase immortality. In what he has titled ‘Project Blueprint’, the entrepreneur uses extreme lifestyle changes to prevent biologically growing older. Not all of us take anti-ageing to such an extreme measure. Most of us don’t want to play Peter Pan and literally grow younger. However, we do want to look it.
“The fear of suddenly becoming a stranger to the mirror”
Last year, Drunk Elephant (among other skincare brands) joined many high schoolers’ Christmas lists. Meanwhile, baby botox is an increasingly popular procedure amongst twenty-somethings. This procedure includes a smaller dose of traditional botox, which aims to prevent rather than correct wrinkles.
Yet, even the high-street methods are not risk-free. Ingredients in typical anti-ageing creams, such as retinol, can be too harsh on young skin and lead to long-term damage. You do not need to be a licensed professional to administer non-surgical injectables in the UK. Mistakes that lead to infections and paralysis can and do happen.
However, the possible negative effects do not stop many from trying these anti-ageing methods.
Why Do We Care?
When a TikTok filter which predicted how you’ll look in years to come went viral, users questioned if the face in the camera could really be theirs one day. Video after video showed users gain wrinkles, eye bags, and greying roots to their shock and horror.
Ageing, of course, is far more gradual. But perhaps it is the fear of suddenly becoming a stranger to the mirror that is driving many to these preventative measures.
As well as this, older age carries with it a higher risk of illness and loneliness.
There can be a sense that when you are “past your prime”, you are discarded from society. The overwhelming success of The Substance (2024) supports the increased fear of ageing, especially for women. To look younger can change how you are treated and protect you from ageism.
The Gender Dimension
It is also important to note the pressure to look young lies heavier on women than men.
People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive award is repeatedly won by male celebrities in their forties and fifties: Patrick Dempsey, Chris Evans, Paul Rudd. But the women deemed most beautiful by society, such as Anya Taylor-Joy, Zendaya, and Bella Hadid, are in their twenties and early thirties.
Older women fade into the shadows of modern media. There are many movies and TV shows where mothers and their supposed children have impossibly small age gaps between them. For example, in Orange is the New Black, Elizabeth Rodriguez plays Dascha Polanco’s mother. But the actresses have less than a two-year age gap between them. In Riding In Cars With Boys (2001), Drew Barrymore is two years younger than her on-screen son.
“Growing older is part of being human and something to look forward to rather than dread”
We repeatedly see younger women playing older. We gain a disingenuous understanding of what growing older looks like and then find ourselves flawed for not meeting the unrealistic standard.
But changes are happening. In 2010, the average female TV presenter age was 40, compared to a male 46. Now, we see a plethora of female hosts in their forties and fifties, such as Claudia Winkleman and Davina McCall, dominate primetime TV. Furthermore, recent movies such as Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022) and The Idea of You (2024) show Emma Thompson and Anne Hathway championing older women’s sexuality and proving fun experiences don’t end when you hit thirty.
Changing The Societal Expectation
A poignant moment in the Barbie movie (2024) is when Barbie, the epitome of what beauty means to many, sits on a bench next to an elderly woman. Fresh out of Barbieland, this is the first time the protagonist sees someone who is not perfectly plastic. Her reaction? To say that the woman, played by Oscar-winning costume designer Ann Roth, is “beautiful”. Director Greta Gerwig described this scene as the “heart of the movie”. It’s a moment that shows growing older is part of being human and something to look forward to rather than dread.
It seems that anti-ageing stems from the fact that everyone around us is afraid of ageing too. But when you get old, do you think people will be counting your wrinkles or your grey hairs? We forget that marks of age, such as smile lines and achier bones, are marks of experience and lives lived.
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Featured image courtesy of Vladimir Soares via Unsplash. No changes made to this image. Image license found here.
