Youth Elixir. Wrinkle Repair. Age-Defying. I might be old enough to get my bathroom renovated (and send progress photos to friends as if showing off a newborn child), but any stranger casting an eye over the glut of anti-ageing creams lining my cabinet shelves would wonder why I hadn’t installed grab bars to hoist my decaying body out of the bath.
If the apocalypse arrives tomorrow – and we could all do with a wee break, eh? – I’ll have enough skin-smoothing lotions in my arsenal to suspend my 35-year-old face in amber while hiding in a bunker for the next few years. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?
I didn’t even buy half of those jars with the intention of holding back the years; I have just acquired them, as many women do, because it’s difficult not to. The entire skincare industry is predicated on the idea that the signs of ageing can, and must, be slathered away.
For the longest time, most products were baldly labelled ‘anti-ageing’, a faintly ridiculous term given the only thing that halts ageing is death (or sipping from whichever fountain Cate Blanchett and Paul Rudd frequent). In recent years, many brands have taken to promising ‘youthful vitality’ and ‘regeneration’ instead of saying outright, ‘Here mate, your wrinkles need zapped’. But that’s still the underlying message.
Soon, though, you won’t find any age-related euphemisms whispering from the aisles at The Body Shop. Last week, the high street stalwart announced a rebrand of one of its best-selling skincare lines, Drops of Youth. As well as an updated formula, its name is changing to Edelweiss, after the flower from which one of its key ingredients is derived rather than the ditty from The Sound of Music. The advert, instead of zoning in on sagging skin or lined eyes, features three women discussing what it means to be resilient. There is no mention of age or beauty. David Boynton, chief executive of The Body Shop, described the move as “a stand against the beauty industry’s anti-ageing narrative”.
It’s not the first time a beauty brand has tried to flip the narrative – Dove did it with its Real Beauty campaign in 2004, which featured ‘normal’ women of different races and sizes in its ads. At the time, it felt ground-breaking, and it sparked a discourse, aided latterly by social media, that encouraged other brands and the media to diversify their definition and representation of beauty. Since then, we’ve seen plus-size women on the cover of Cosmopolitan, and a Latina model with Down’s syndrome star in a Victoria’s Secret campaign. Tall, thin and white doesn’t dominate in quite the way it once did. But the valorisation of youth definitely does.
I remember an Oil of Ulay ad from the early nineties in which a woman says to her mum, “Nick thought we were sisters – you look so young!” The mum says it’s because of her moisturiser, which restores her “natural fluids” (boak) and helps to keep her “young and beautiful”. You can watch it back on YouTube if you want a laugh, but it’s not that funny when you realise how little things have changed in three decades.
In some ways, they’re worse. A L’oreal advert that aired this year opens with the actress Eva Longoria barking, “After 40, wrinkles deepen – so we need anti-ageing care that works.” My brow furrowed so hard while watching it, I developed two new wrinkles. Quick, pass me the damn cream!
This language, this messaging, makes women fear getting older – not because time is running out to do all of the things we’d love to do, or our immune systems may not be as robust as they once were, but because our appearance is changing in a way that apparently makes us less attractive, less vital, less relevant.
At the same time, it has become unfashionable to admit to having these insecurities because we’re supposed to be living in an era of body positivity and self-acceptance. As a feminist, I should be able to watch that Eva Longoria advert impassively, recognising it as yet another attempt by the beauty industry to make me worry about something men are seldom told to concern themselves over. But I am not immune to the panic it generates, so all that happens is I end up feeling bad about feeling bad.
I’m not saying men don’t experience anxiety about getting older – the UK, broadly speaking, is an ageist country ruled by a party that treats the elderly with contempt (unless, of course, they wear a crown). It affects us all. However, the expectation to maintain a youthful appearance as we age is felt far more keenly by women.
We learn to catastrophise the ageing process. In 2018, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found in their research that twice as many women than men (49% compared with 23%) felt pressured to stay looking young, and perceptions of when old age begins are “significantly higher among women than men”. Who can blame us when a torrent of anti-ageing treatments is volleyed at us on our phone and TV screens, in magazines, and in the shops we wander into every week?
The RSPH called for outlets such as Boots and Superdrug to ban the use of the term ‘anti-ageing’, but both of these shops (and several others) still categorise products as such on their websites. The Body Shop’s decision not to use it in their product names or marketing materials is a welcome change; a signal to the rest of the industry – and their customers – that ageing is something that cannot be fought.
And why should it? To grow old is a privilege. To look the part is really no big deal. But if you’re really concerned with looking younger, take inspiration from my 93-year-old grandfather, who is frequently mistaken for someone in his seventies. He holidayed in Ayia Napa a few years ago, uses Instagram more than I do and is married to someone in their fifties. That’ll do it.
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