What age do you think your looks started to fade ?

[LardLizard]

I think I still look pretty great at forty, don’t think my skin looks forty at all
So I’m wondering when will I really notice it ? Know it’s different for everyone
I’m think maybe after 50 now ?

I don't think I ever had "looks" in the sense this thread means. I am reasonably attractive, always had weight problems, never worn much makeup or been high maintenance. Since having DS age 36 I've felt older, tireder and fatter but now pregnant again I've had lots of people very surprised I'm in my 40s, so maybe I still have a little youthfulness! Or maybe it's the weight. I don't think I'm any more or less attractive though, but am less confident/flirty.

My younger sister is the classic gorgeous blonde haired blue eyed baby face but still looks great now heading to 40. My brother was a gorgeous child and grew into a stupidly handsome adult, he doesn't look young for his age but still very good looking.

I'm hoping I've picked up my mum's genes in this department (I look so like her that my DP looked at a photo of her taken in the 70s and asked why I was in fancy dress...).

Always looked a lot older, and very strong features, until the age of 25 or so. Then frozen in time until about 40, and gracefully ageing from there.

I was never ID'd as a teenager, but it's started to kick in again now age 29 in places with Think 25. Fingers crossed.

I disagree with the baby faced comment.
I think if you have a slightly fatter face you age better. It keeps you plump and fresh faced.
I think people with angular features get more harsh looking.
I was watching deep blue sea the other night with saffron burrows ( model looks with cut glass cheekbones) I couldn’t believe she was only 26. She looked mid thirties already and looking at pictures of her more recently she hasn’t aged well.

Hmmm ...

I've always felt that the concept of 'role models' was really a bit rubbish. But I'm wondering if those of you (most of the thread) who seem to dread becoming or looking older just don't have any positive model of mature womanhood.

Said it before but for years my ideal was the clearly past middle-age university women zipping around Oxford on bikes, grey pigtails flying behind them, baskets piled with books and papers. Glorious way to be.

And then they demolished the age bar for the Turner Prize. And I want to win it at ninety. With a head full of memory and explosion and craft and skill. Swathed in Rick Owen or Margiela or whatever. Defining the future for generations to come.

I used to worry about bags under my eyes. But in the last few years I have earned my face. Along with a place in the world and belief in my own abilities. That's what I care about.

(Well, that and Tom Ford cosmetics.)

Gosh such depressing reading! I’ve never been attractive so I guess I don’t have much to lose but I’m nearly 36 and pregnancy/sleep deprivation have definitely taken their toll over the last 2 years. I don’t have wrinkles and I can’t pit my finger on it but I just look “old”. I have acne though

Pregnancy seemed to trigger the start of greys and suddenly I have loads but now I get my hair coloured professionally and actually it looks better than when I did it myself. I’m also just happier in my life now I have DD. I just need to find some time and headspace for healthier eating and exercise. Am hoping to have a second in the next couple of years but that will probably write me off for good!

I do look at pictures from my 20s and think wow why I didn’t I make the most of how I looked then.

All the twenty something's reading this thread now with fear in their hearts

It happens fast!

I'm 32. I don't feel anywhere near as stunning like I did at 25. I don't turn every head in the room anymore - nobody in their twenties make much effort to look now unless I'm wearing tight clothing. What a difference a couple of years makes!

Having a baby at 29 aged me fast but it wasn't in a way I could put my finger on...didn't have wrinkles for example. But I would do my make up the same and instead at the end of it looking and thinking beautiful! I just began to think...meh. Not bad. That'll do. I looked the same...but didn't look the same?

(The plumpness of youth does have a certain beauty btw that is true, but you lose it fast.)

I then began scrutinising and recognised everything different. Volume loss in certain areas of face making cheekbones too prominent, and hollower under eyes, very slightly lowered eyebrows/eyelids very slightly sagging, mouth corners not quite as turned up as before, very fine lines, volume loss more prominent from nose to chin (nasolabial) hair line has receded....etc I suddenly saw it all.

These things don't smack anyone in the face when I meet them as they are all subtle right now. Nobody would think I have sagging eyelids at all. It just means they recognise I'm about 30 rather than 20. Which is normal. Nobody actually looks ten years younger btw people are exaggerating and being complimentary. Maybe a few or five years max, but not ten... mostly they just look good for their age. Which is great!! It's much easier to look older than your years.

Sometimes I do have a little freak out because I know it all becomes more and more prominent with age, (overnight sometimes!) and I worry I will wake up a completely different person - it's all about a loss of control. Even my neck skin under chin stretches when I look over my shoulders now, and I think I will have a lovely full on turkey neck one day soon and it's all completely out of my claws hands.

I then realised this happens to literally everyone (if you're lucky) and your twenties are over and done in the blink of an eye for us all. I have started to tell myself that these changes are okay. I think I fear them not just because of 'losing looks' but because it means getting old which means possible suffering, and of course inevitable death. The reality is that that is likely far off! And I'm pretty sure every decade that passes I will look back and think how young I looked and why did I fret.

When I had my son 9 months ago... I was fresh faced until then - now I need sleep!!!

Whether we care to admit it or not, there is a certain beauty in youth

Would you say the same about ethnicity?

33/34, after having ds3. The change has been huge. I don't look worse, I just look a lot older. I can live with it.

Not that I was ever good looking but I’d say mid-40s for me and my friends now. People are getting more jowly or gaunt if slim (so wrinkles are more obvious). Without make-up people are starting to look older, with make up you can disguise it a bit!!

It depends how thin you are - skinny faces shrivel up horribly fast compared to everyone else. Facial fat = youth.

On the upside, very thin women can get away with looking gamine and graceful, as long as they don't show too much skin anywhere on the body.

My jaw vanished at 49, when I got quite ill, but at 50 everything else is ok, bar my hands, which are thickening and stiff with arthritis.

I don't turn every head in the room anymore

Did you turn heads in the first place? Nobosy can be that self centred

I'm 46 and have decided to go down kicking and screaming against age. I've noticed jowls (I have lost a lot of weight) and my skin can't decide if it's dry or oily. I have visible pores for the first time in my life. I have spent a fortune on products and am making an appointment with a dermatologist to discuss laser.

About 41/2 for me. That's when the grey hair comes and the tiredness in the face is harder to hide, plus I had kids late. I'm 5ft9 and the gym means I'm still pretty slim and the cheekbones I hated as a child are a bonus now. I have my roots done every month and regular fake tans. My mum has a fabulous face but through a bad diet has piled on the weight, I'm trying to avoid that. I have some frown lines that I'm considering botox for!

I’m sure I’ll get laughed at for saying this, but about 27. Having kids has really aged me!

In all honesty I look better now at 38 than I did in my twenties. I was never a beauty and had acne for years. I had my non sleeping daughter at 24 so had the lovely dog tired/acne look.
I'm still not model material, not that I care particularly. I do however get more sleep, only get the occasional spot, take more time with make up and clothes and I think overall I look better.
Maybe this is the plus side of not growing up an absolute stunner. .

Nobody actually looks ten years younger btw people are exaggerating and being complimentary

Maybe not when you are 30, but there are 60 year olds that look younger than some 50 year olds, or 80 year olds that could pass for 70.

Yes exactly what bialystockandbloom said.

My looks will never fade. I may get older and more wrinkled but I will still be me with my own looks.

Would you say the same about ethnicity?

Irrelevant and rather bizarre question unless you're on a mission to seek out an 'ism'. You won't get a rise out of me, sorry.

I've always been an ugly fucker, now I'm just older and ugly instead of being younger and ugly.

37 and looked pretty young and glowy and this year I just keep catching glimpses of myself and I just look dull and tired and seem to have lost some facial structure

Tbh even though I have answered this is in a pp. Do men actually care about all this? Genuine question. The men I know don't seem at all bothered.

35/36 for me.

I don't smoke, and drink very moderately. I had my children late 20s.

I notice my eyes are looking very baggy, and the jowls have appeared. I now look like my dad and his sisters (I never thought I did until now - maybe when they were going they looked like "young" me?)

I don't think it is an noticeable to anyone else as it is to me though.

I actually looked OK at 40. Perhaps the odd wrinkle but basically more or less the same as in my 30s. I think a lot of people still look fine at 40 these days. Then after an unplanned late baby and quite a lot of stress I looked like an old lady by 45. Literally looked about 15 years older. Saggy sunken cheeks and greying hair.

attagirl, Gruach 👍

I don't get all this 'beauty of youth' nonsense either. Most teens and 20somethings I see are perfectly nondescript. I don't mean that in a mean spirited way, it's just what I see. But I want to be Sheila Hancock so what do I know?