When did you start to look "older"?

[GingerbreadGingerbread]

I have always been semi confident with my looks, eg. Feel confident when I've done my hair and make up for a night out but still plenty of things if change if I could! However I still always felt as though I could look nice if I put the effort in.

Recently though I've noted I have to try harder to look good and even then nothing looks how it used to. I haven't gained or lost weight, I think I'm just losing that "bloom" of youth. I work in a young ish industry where people dress stylishly and follow trends well into their 50s so I think that's tricked me into thinking I still look young, as I dress in the same style of clothes I wore in my early 20s. However I'm starting to think there's no way back for me now. I'm 30 by the way.

[Cakescakescakes]

After my second baby so age about 34. I always looked younger in the face than my age but it has caught up with me!

[user1471888857]

I'm 30 too but face wise still look young but body I've noticed that things don't sit the same as they used to.
I put more weight on my stomach/thigh area than I did when I was 20/21
Still plenty of life in us yet I hope :-)

[Eliza22]

I'm 54 and it's happened for me in the last 18 months.

30 is nothing. Sorry, don't mean to make your problem sound trivial but really, it's maybe about lifestyle....eat well, low alcohol consumption, early nights. Drinking lots of water and exercise.

I can honestly say that I've been happy with my looks up to menopause. Then, everything changes! Enjoy up your 30's/40's. It will change, post 50

[mamapants]

I found I looked older between the ages of 29-31 and looking a bit better again now. It was the tiredness of two babies effecting me. The youngest is two now and I'm less tired and looking better. Soon she will be going to preschool and I'll be able to exercise again so will hopefully be looking ok.
Main issues for me were having a lot of grey hair for my age but dye can solve that. And I've got a tummy post children which means I'm dressing to hide it as opposed to for looking nice. So I feel I look frumpy, so weight gain is still a problem for me. I think there is about three years after having children where women tend to not look as good. And I know this doesn't apply to everyone some people have willing babysitters, use childcare to get out exercising, have babies who sleep, still get to do their hair etc.
Sorry crazily long post

[Fuzzypeggy]

Honestly, don't worry about aging and looking old at 30!!!!! You are so young, there's plenty of time to worry about that and when you are older you will look back at your 30 year old self and wish you'd spent the time worrying less about being and looking old.
This fascination of looking young all the time is wearying and a reason why I'm thinking of leaving the s&b board, it's just such a negative thing. I'd like to halt the aging process as much as the next person but it can't be done and spending your youth, yes youth, worrying about it is awful. So what if we age in our looks a bit each year? I've learnt things, experienced things, had a good and bad time since I was 30 but it's all good, I'm still here. Late 30s by the way. Sorry for the rant but these constant threads about aging are so tiresome, especially coming from such young women. And yes I know, I can choose not to read them.

[Fairylea]

Completely agree with Fuzzy.

It's pointless trying to stay looking "young". Everyone ages. Yes you can look the best you can at any age but trying to stay looking late teens or early 20s for the rest of your life is depressing and destructive. At 30 you're still a young woman anyway!

[NapQueen]

I'm 31 and have a nearly 5yo and a nearly 2yo. Having the second child has definitely aged me looks wise more so than dc1.

The tiredness has made me look constantly wrecked. I've half a head full of grey hair. It's starting to go thin and whispy at the front and top.

I can't keep a handle on the weight either so the body doesn't even make up for the face.

I'm hopeful that as the demands of the kids lessen as they grow I can spend more r time on me.

[dragonsarebest]

I remember noticing a change around 30 and I'm noticing a change again now (weeks away from 40). I'm not hung up on it or wishing I looked younger/different, I'm just paying attention. I fully accept PPs saying that this is nothing compared to 50 or 60 or whatever, but right now is the oldest that I and my skin have ever been.

OP you're right that there's no way back, but that isn't a bad thing!

[HyacinthBouquetNo1]

Id say late 30s. I thought i looked young until then, long blonde hair, very smooth skin, very slim. Then the illness started and now , at 46, i look dreadful, short grey hair, size 14, very pale and ill looking with very dark eye circles

[Heathcliff27]

Since I had a hysterectomy and subsequent menopause last year, I'm
43. My hairs drier, skins become blotchy, have put on a small amount of weight but enough for me to feel yuck.

[HateSummer]

I don't know. I feel like I've aged and look way older than I am (I'm 33). But at my new job everyone is shocked when I tell them I have 3 kids and am married, as they tell me I look 21/22. I think a lot of it is in our heads tbh, which doesn't help; I still think I look frumpy, ugly and old.

[mewkins]

I am 37 and I feel like this year I am starting to look more liney. But I look better than I ever have. I think it is the feeling that I need to take care etc and so I do.

[Floisme]

This fascination of looking young all the time is wearying and a reason why I'm thinking of leaving the s&b board, it's just such a negative thing.
Please don't go, Fuzzy - lots of posters totally agree with you.

To answer the op's question, it kicked in heavily in my mid 50s, after the menopause. But I don't think a 30 year old is ever going to look like a 20 year old, or a 40 year old like a 30 year old. Why would they?

I know this may sound patronising but I'm going to say it anyway: Of course, look after yourself: eat well, don't smoke or sunbathe, exercise, use sunscreen. Then stop fretting about it. If you're 30, you hopefully still have decades of life ahead of you but they will pass in a flash. Please don't waste them worrying about this kind of shit.

The beauty industry gets filthy rich by making women feel crap. Don't let them.

[pineappleeyes]

In the last 6 months!! I'm 36. I now look old and feel old.

[nooddsocksforme]

I hit the menopause when I was 38 but really it was after 45 that it went way downhill . still reasonably slim and can afford better clothes than ever before , but wrinkled , jowly and dull skin. Please enjoy being in your 30s -you don't really know what its like to look old. mind you -apart from how I look things are better than ever in other ways

[Fuzzypeggy]

Thanks floisme. You are right of course, I just see an obsession of youth on here that I just don't see in my real life and it's very depressing when you really think about it.
Totally agree with you about the beauty industry wanting to make us feel bad about ourselves, and only us women. Men seem to get on with their aging looks much better than us, in general.

[imwithspud]

Well I'm 25, until recently people always thought I was younger than I was. If I ever bought alcohol I would always get id'd. More recently no one seems surprised when I tell them my age and I haven't been id'd the past few times I've bought alcohol either.
I do have a handful of grey hairs but nothing noticeable yet.

Seems to have happened roughly since I was pregnant with dd2, since going from 1 to 2 children I've been more tired than ever so I think that has a lot to do with it. Hoping in a year or two ill start looking a bit better again.

[Darklane]

I heartily agree with Fuzzy & Floisme, you're young! Don't waste it by fretting about looking older.
It really is true that time seems to accelerate as it passes, every decade goes faster than the last, enjoy the age you are now. Before you know it you're children will be grown & gone & you wonder where the time went.

For me, I think looking older really kicked in big time was about five years after the menopause. I'd always looked younger than I was, one of these annoying types who got charged half price on buses when I was in my late teens & asked my age in pubs well into my twenties. I'm small so that probably added to it. But mid fifties it all caught up.
But, as others have said, we all age....at least the lucky ones of us do.
After all, the alternative is worse, some people don't get the chance.

[mycatwantstokillme1]

When I was 36 I was often asked my age when buying cigarettes. Now I'm 44 and only someone visually impaired could make that mistake! In the last 2 years I've really aged and was gutted for a while, but now I've realised just so long as I'm healthy that's the most important thing. My oldest, best friend was diagnosed with aggressive MS last year (same age as me) and can barely get around unless she's in a wheelchair. It's made me realise it doesn't matter if I now look 44, I can still walk.

[sianihedgehog]

Around 37. Before that I still regularly got asked for ID when buying booze. I think a lot of it is just that with a one year old baby I'm fucking shattered all the time, though.

[RepentAtLeisure]

I thought 40, but then I actually started taking skincare seriously and it's rolled the clock back a few years.

[puglife15]

Last few years I look older, basically since having kids. I've not had a full night's sleep in a looong time, I don't go on holiday, I comfort eat crap to combat the tiredness and have no time to exercise. My boobs and belly are saggy. I'm also not great at drinking enough water and can't afford things like decent hair cuts.

But honestly? I don't really care. There's a good reason I look older. Well, two good reasons! Lots of my friends have botox, fillers, lip injections etc and I can always tell. I think it often looks a bit weird. I don't mind growing old, even if there is nothing graceful about it!

[alltouchedout]

Upon having ds3 at 33, it seems. Pre pregnancy I got ID'd everywhere, was never a beauty but always surprised people by not being in my early 20s, etc. Since he was born I have not been ID'd once. I look older. (I look like crap in general but also definitely older.) I read that pregnancy ages you because it lengthens the long bones in your face? I don't know the truth of that but I do know that last pregnancy seems to have aged me by a good decade, maybe more :(

[Aoibhe]

31, and all of a sudden too. Huge change since I was 30; lines around eyes, face appeared more gaunt, first greys and hair thinned. I notice a huge difference in my friends who don't have kids. I think having babies and especially second+ babies ages us hugely.

I know lots of women in their 50's and 60's who look absolutely fabulous though, which is reassuring.

[Aoibhe]

Snap alltouchedout