Why I’m anti anti-ageing

There aren’t many people who blog about beauty over 40, and probably even less of us over 45.

So in looking around at products aimed at post-40 women like me I have been thinking a lot about anti-ageing, and have come to the conclusion that I am agin it.

Ageing = being alive. We all do it every day, no matter what age we are. I am not anti-being alive. All in all, I quite like it and plan to do a lot more.

The language of anti-ageing is the language of war – marketing speak exhorts us to fight signs of ageing; to battle and defeat it at all costs.

Why would you want to fight the very thing that signifies being alive? Why not use the language of love and embrace it?

The really great thing about ageing is that the older you get, the less fucks you give.

 

anti anti-ageing


 

I know a lot of teenagers, and they all seem to give the most fucks about a lot of stuff. Highs are sky-sized and disappointments are bitter. Probably I was the same at that age.

I look back and say Good heavens, what a dick I was, when I consider some of the things I used to think were important. What a relief to move beyond that stage.

As well as giving away all your fucks, the other thing that happens as you age is that you grow scars. Some of those scars are visible, like stretch marks and wrinkles, and many of them are mental and invisible. But whether you can see them or not, we all have them. Absolutely nobody makes it much beyond 20 without gaining scars of some kind. So it’s kind of pointless to hide them. Scars are the map of your life.

The other stuff age gives us is baggage; visible and invisible; on our faces and in our lives. Nobody is immune to that.

So whilst I will buy and review products that proclaim themselves to be anti-ageing, it is with a spirit of asking what they can do for us, to enhance who we are rather than fighting what we’ve become.

Ageing is a privilege; not a right and not something everybody gets to have. Heck, by 45  Jesus, Elvis and John Lennon were all dead. Probably all of us have known or loved someone who never got to age – someone whose life may have been short, though it was not small. 

So whatever age you are, embrace the scars, baggage and lack of fucks this has given you. Be pro-ageing, not anti it. It’s a gift we’re lucky to have.