Yes, any woman CAN look better at 50 than 20 — and I’m proof!
Given we live in a society obsessed with youth, the news is delightfully shocking. The age at which a woman is judged to be most beautiful is now almost 40 (38.9 years to be precise). This is based on the average age of celebrities in last week’s World’s Most Beautiful list from People magazine and is a steep increase on the average age of those judged most beautiful back in 1990 — a mere 33.2 years — with this year’s crown going to Julia Roberts, still stunning on the eve of her 50th birthday.
But the truth is, some women do peak later. i can’t be the only one who feels she looks better than she did when she was younger.
Only the other night my friend’s husband caught us gossiping in the kitchen and commented: ‘You lot look so much better now than when you came out of college.’ i waited for the punchline, but there wasn’t one. He was serious.
We all hooted with laughter. But looking at my friends, my dearest pals for 35 years, i can see what he meant. now in our mid‑50s, we know who we are and where we’re at, more or less. We know the clothes that suit us, we know the value of hair dye
and a good blow- dry and we know that lipstick, mascara and brow pencils are our friends.
In my 20s, I despaired of my solid face and absence of cheekbones.
A love of novelty and a magpie’s eye for glitter meant I’d pile a patterned jacket over a skin-tight black ensemble and top the whole thing off with gaudy earrings and red lipstick.
If my 20s were bad, my 30s were worse. I made the mistake of cutting my hair short, thinking it would be practical. Besides, you couldn’t have long hair by the time you were 40, could you?
oh, the follies of youthful thinking — and how the world has changed in the past 20 years. now, I see long-haired older lovelies everywhere. not just elle Macpherson and elizabeth Hurley, but real women in shops, at conferences, at the gym.
I wore black, too, thinking it was easiest — less decision-making when trying to wrangle three children out of the house before work — but it did me no favours. Light grey or navy is kinder on the complexion than black.
We women of a certain age are lucky to be moving through mid-life at a time when the beauty industry has developed sophisticated ways of helping us look our best. As a beauty editor for nearly 20 years, I’ve been able to take full advantage of all of this.
I had my first Botox injection at 41 and now have it three times a year. I try a new procedure of some sort every six weeks or so in the course of my work, and my latest favourites are microneedling (rolling tiny needles over your face, to force your skin into repair mode) and light peels.
In the past ten years, when the fat pads in my face started shrivelling (as they do with age), I’ve even discovered my cheekbones. now there’s a silver lining.
When a blood test showed my hormone levels were starting the long slide towards the menopause ten years ago, aged 44, I embraced bio-identical hormones. these prop up your natural hormone levels and so ease the effects of menopause, from mental fuzziness to a thicker waist.
Along with regular exercise — five short sessions of intensive strength training and three yoga classes a week — the bioidenticals have sharpened my body and mind.
Does this make me a raging narcissist? no, I just find it all very amusing. Who would have thought, at an age where I could have been settling into grey hair and elasticated waistbands, I would be pontificating in print on liking my looks?
Will I look back in ten years’ time and laugh at this version of myself? Who can say? By then, maybe 65 will be the new 40.