To feel a bit of sadness to see looks gradually fading

[Maisyblue]

Just that really, I wonder if we all take it for granted when we have young fresh faces. I can remember when looking in the mirror first thing in the morning before putting makeup on wasn't an unpleasant sight. Now it's a bit of a scary sight. Also it gets longer to get ready now to look half decent. Isn't it a bit sad to see the face that was once young and glowing slowly start to fade.

YANBU. I plan on having botox. My face looks like it is slowly melting off my skull. I don't plan on telling anyone, even my husband. If anyone notices something I will wax lyrical about Astral.
Agree with Mrs My once lovely waist is disappearing.

Honestly? It's a relief. No more filthy looks from other women. No more hostility from men shorter than me. I do occasionally think "fucking hell" when I catch myself in the mirror but all round I'm quite happy with it...

As I'll be going to university with 99 other ladies, all less than half my age, I shall either
a) cry all the way home for how I used to look, or
b) smile wisely and be quietly smug that all that pretending to look effortlessly glamourous to impress my peers is now beyond me and I can just be me

It is a bit alarming. However I am looking forward to being formidable and taken seriously at work (and earning more money). I think this is one of the reasons it can be really good to carve out a career you enjoy if you can. Getting better at something and being rewarded for it is very satisfying, and a bit of compensation for ageing... Also the joy of having children, grandchildren etc. It's not worse, just different

It's when you go out thinking you don't look bad at all, quite pleased with hair, face etc, then all it takes is a few young ones in your company to bring you back to earth. Just can't compete with youth.

Youth is beautiful. Effortlessly. (Which is why i find it sad that so many of todays teens are plastered in make up which ages them so. Orange skin and false lashes).

I was lovely in my teens. Went through a shitty phase in my 20s. Emerged into my 30s very very lovely indeed (pulled a gorgeous DH 10 years my junior ) and got to my early 40s thinking i was just never going to age.

Then at 43ish my neck began to look odd. I noticed my jawline was not quite as smooth as it used to be. I noticed a grey hair! Out came the purse and since then i now plaster on all the creams and potions i can afford. Since my late 20s people have consitantly seemed to think i'm apx 10 years younger than i am and i know i'm very lucky.

I am determined to keep the deterioration as slow as poss. Luckily DH is aging quite badly (!) and it seems now right we look the same age. But gawd there's nothing like having a younger DH to really keep your anti aging efforts focused. It's relentless.

Lillian your post expresses my view completely. Be the best you can and don't waste time regretting what you no longer are. Enjoy what you are now.

There are benefits with age. I can afford a really nice hairdresser and clothes, people comment on my hair and how nice I look. This year i bought myself a great car and I pose unashamedly in it yes, it is a fuck it I've had cancer you know car and I have paraglided off a 6000 ft mountain strapped to a nice young man. I wouldn't have done any of these things in my 20s.

My dh and I also went to global gathering and danced the night away with all the young things. It was utterly fab and I will be going again.

My face is still OK.

My body - now that's a tragedy...

Yay Myohmimi like you I am old (71 shhhh) but I have a 9 year old (don't ask) I wear jeans trendy tops and despite wrinkles do not feel my age. Just grateful to be here in reasonable health.

I've just turned 38 and now that I'm recovering from serious Mental illness I look happier & healthier than I have in years.

I've got a nice glow from my holiday, my skin is clear and free of spots now, my hair has grown back (it fell out due to medication) and sod the white hairs - I have it highlighted so they don't show.

I'm still 2stone overweight but I know how to disguise it by dressing well. I finally know how to style my hair and do my make up properly.

I still take a lot of prescription drugs but I've lost the 'spaced out' look I used to have due to meds and illness.

I think many people do look good in their teens / 20s but I didn't - in my teens I had an eating disorder so I had frizzy hair, spotty skin, looked unhappy & was far too thin.
Photos from my 20s & early 30s mostly show me looking drunk because they were taken on nights out & i was a heavy binge drinker. I have only a small handful of photos where I was sober and i looked much prettier sober, if only I'd realised that.

Mid 30s until last year i just looked ill, it's depressing to look at photos of that time.

Youth is not the only thing that makes people look good - I think good health is very important; so is a nice pleasant personality which shines through.
On a shallow note a bit of make up to disguise problem areas & enhance the good bits; a decent hair colour & style, good posture and stylish clothes all help to improve looks whatever age you are.

That's a great post Latara

Seconded.

I need to sort out my hair I think. It's just a crappy frizzy mess and I have no idea what to do with it. Neither does any hairdresser I have visited - they ask me what I want and I don't know! And because I have an odd wonky body, I never look neat, just kind of thrown together. I need a personal stylist!

I did the opposite and started to grow mine when I was 41. I got it to an inch of my waist but it was hard work looking after it so just today had 4 inches cut of.

If I knew then what I know now
id have worn short skirts, tight tops & bikinis untill i was 30.
I was such a prude .

It seems only yesterday I looked like a redheaded Matt Damon, unlike the sandy Phil Mitchell who stares glumly from the shaving mirror.

But then I remember that the handsome chap from the 80s had things going on behind the grin. Things like PTSD, depression, no off switch for alcohol, a very large quantity of hatred for himself and others.

Phil, on the other hand, sleeps 8 hours a night, can cycle at 15 mph for hours, and lives with two women he regards as the best thing since sliced bread. They return this regard, which he finds really rather nice.

Nasal hair's a bugger, but that's about it.

Yanbu Op.
I noticed a another line a few days ago - it's right on my cheek dimple and only on one side I'm assuming the other side will catch up in the next days/weeks/months

Hair - I'm another who chopped it all off and love it. It was black and in a pixie style and I used to get told it knocked a few years off my age . I recently had it stripped back to blonde and someone guessed my age as 27/28 a few weeks back - I'm 36. I walked around like this for the rest of the day.

I've just written a novel on this subject (currently being rejected by agents across London...).
Yes, it's sad and bloody depressing. I was an ugly teenager who blossomed at about seventeen, then appreciated and milked my looks for all they were worth for years. To have them fading now is awful as I know what I'm going back to (yes, really vain but true).
On the plus side I now finally (finally!) know what suits me (what a shame it took me so long) my hair looks pretty good and I have a DH who still fancies the pants off me!
And I like being older generally because I know a lot of stuff and feel quite wise and worldly and sorted.

I still look healthy and have good skin.
I don't mind wrinkles at all.
But I given a choice I'd prefer tauter skin, to sagging jowls and hooded eyelids.
Its the downward gravitational pull thats a bit saddening.

That's it exactly, Disgrace. Blimey, we are old gimmers. Shall I just say, "youth is wasted on the young" and get it over with?

Make up used to make my quite plain face a bit prettier. Now it doesn't really work at all, unless I use a trowel

That's why I accept accept myself and my looks at the age I am now. I am a 45 year old version of myself.
Anyhow all this 'sadness' people are feeling can't be good for wrinkles.

I'm 44. I am also sad! One of my friends had a half facelift and her boobs done. I'm a bit jealous as my jawline is 'softening' and my boobs are uneven AND saggy now. But sometimes I feel quite 'free' that I'm getting older. My mantra is make an effort and before you start criticising yourself too much, you shout 'GOod Enough' in the mirror and run out of the door.

Wrinkles I can handle.
Uneven skin tone sorted with a wee bit of BB cream.
Saggy boobs sorted with a good bra.

But I am getting jowls, JOWLS ffs. Being properly vain but it makes me sad to see my face falling down around me. I would have surgery if I could afford it.

Totally agree op. It's utter shit.

I mind most about my arms. My arms were better than Jennifer annistons but lately they look dimpled. Still thin but dimpled. Very depressing.

I think if you have been used to being whistled at ( yes I know) and quite liked it. Been looked at and used those looks it's bloody harder to accept ageing as you take it fur granted.

I have a mate who,by her own admission and her words not mine, was always a bit of a dog, and now she's 50 she's happy as she's on a level playing field.

I think it's also hard when you have effortlessly gorgeous teen dds who are size 8.