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 ?

My looks fade every time my lifestyle is crap and I put on weight.

After a month of avoiding alcohol, and exercising daily, a man I don’t know told me I was very pretty the other day. I’m 51.

At the start of that month, I looked old and jowly.

Good health makes a person more attractive.

I think men stopped checking me out when I was about 28. I am 32 now and am still reasonable I suppose but I put a lot of weight on and feel quite unattractive

I'm 44 and wrinkly with sagging miscoloured skin especially around my eyes (wow doesn't that sound gorgeous!) and I notice among women in their 40s amounts of wrinkliness really varies - some women look almost as they did at 30, others are like me. I saw my friend's 13 yo applying foundation and concealer to her fresh dewy face and wanted to cry!

On the positive side, after years of hiding the greys with varying amounts of success I recently decided to go au naturel with my hair and surprisingly it makes me feels fabulous - like I've shed a skin and revealed a new silvery side to myself. I really think my hair is now more lovely than during all those years of hitting the dye. I sometimes look at DD's hair and mourn the glossy brunette locks but I am thinking of how my hair was in my teens and twenties - long long gone.

I wonder when Isabella Rossellini, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Goldie Hawn, Joan Bakewell, Meryl Streep thought they were starting to lose their looks?
They no longer look 25 but are still fantastic, charismatic women. They are my inspiration when I spot another wrinkle.

You can have lines and wrinkles and still look better than people without them.

About 45. I definitely have a sagging face now. Harder to know how to dress too.

Oh Judi Dench is definitely my role model for looking good in your 80s. Good haircut, natural hair colour, no obvious 'work' done on her face and a figure that is realistically healthy for her age.

If I look half as good as that when I'm her age I'll be happy.

Oh, I'd say early thirties?

It was about 32 when I looked at the crows feet under and around my eyes and decided "nope - you can't keep getting away with 29 anymore!"

I'm 46 and more happy in my skin (and with my skin!) than ever.

I think it depends on when you have children too. I would say I looked at my best looks wise (figure too) in every way in my 30s but that was before DC.

I'd look better if my already long thin nose would stop bloody growing!

Looks worse than any wrinkles on photos.

I haven’t read the whole theread, but I’ve dipped in and out and I’m shocked and disappointed that I haven’t seen a load of people telling you not to be so ridiculous and not to place such importance on youth. Looks fading! FFS what century are you in? Why do you even care? People have faces. They are attractive or not to other people, not in any objective way but individually. ‘Looks’ are the least important thing about a person.
Why the panic about not being 20, or 30 or whatever? Youth isn’t everything.

I'm nearly 39, get asked for ID regularly when buying alcohol. I've always looked after my skin etc but I think genes have a huge part to play - I look a lot like my mum and she looks fabulous at 75. I have the odd wrinkle here and there, a few grey hairs but my skin looks the best it ever has (FINALLY bye bye hormonal acne!!)

I see my same age friends suddenly looking older recently, so I suppose I must have changed too, but it's not enough for me to exclaim at the mirror about it just yet.

I am more concerned about my health fading than I am about my looks fading

Your looks faded the moment you thought they were more important than what's on the inside.

To some extent your looks to reflect what is on the inside if your skin is prematurely aged then your insides probably are also prematurely aged

Why the panic about not being 20, or 30 or whatever? Youth isn’t everything

Sad isn't it?

For some people, their looks are a measure of their self worth. For others, men have to validate their worth from their physical appearance.

This is strange. Women noting that their looks have faded doesn't equate to them thinking their worth has been negatively affected, does it?

About 2

I was 41 when I noticed that I didn't look as good as I did in my 20s or 30s. I think that I look better than many people my age though (now 50) including many of those who think that their skin is still perfect. Some people are quite delusional but I suppose it's a good place to be!

36, after a year of being woken up multiple times through the night by DD.

about 43 for me.

pteradcatyl the imagery of ‘faded’ does suggest that to me. Also all the angst about it happening, when will it happen, what will it lead to... it’s quite sad that women feel like this.

Why is it sad that women feel like that?

Surely losing anything is difficult and requires a period of mourning to be able to come to terms with it. I don't see why losing one's looks should be any different.

Not sad, really the fact that I don’t look that good doesn’t mean I have not improved in many other areas.

It doesn’t mean, however, that I look at the mirror these days and explode in tears of joy at seeing my forehead descending over my nose. No matter how wonderful my life is in many other aspects