to be freaked out by how much our faces change between 45 - 55 years old?

[tallowspa]

I'm just back from visiting a friend in the flesh I haven't seen since 2019. It was really lovely to see her but she was very down about her looks and how much she feels her face has changed in the past few years as she is now 53. I think she still looks amazing but she does look different now. She is 7 years older than me and the last time we were together you wouldn't have thought she was older at all but now the age difference was visible.

I work with women of all ages and one woman in her late 50's keeps saying how she looked good and like herself up until she was about 51 then within a year her face, skin and body changed and now she has just had to get used to never really feeling happy about how she looks or like herself.

Even looking at photos of actresses with all the surgeons and treatments at their disposal you see the same changes so I don't think it is something you can really escape, its inevitable and natural.

It just freaks me out though, I am 46 and still look like myself and I finally feel happy with how I look probably for the first time in my life but I know that over the next decade my face will change and probably not for the better.

I'm not on about looking young, or attractive and I know that aging is a privilege and that the alternative to aging is death but I still feel so freaked out my how much our faces seem to change at this time of life, menopause I suppose. I am on HRT (since I was 42) and that probably helps but obviously it isn't a miracle worker and these changes still occur.

I don't mind going grey or getting lines on my face its everything else and how our faces seem to fundamentally alter that freaks me out!

Frida Khalo was also in constant pain due to her accident and heartbroken by the love of her life, Rivera. No wonder she didn’t want to come back…..

Yep, wait until you’re in your 60s. You look in the Mirror expecting to see your younger self and 😩 As Bette Davies says, getting old isn’t for cissies! Enjoy your 40s and 50s.

All that being said, I don’t mind as much as I thought I would. I still enjoy stylish clothes and hair and my body still does mostly what I want it too. Plus, I’m calmer, wiser and have learned the art of not giving a fuck!

I agree. Aging is hard. And I don’t see feeling that way as vanity.
We shouldn’t be ashamed to like bits of ourselves, and to see those change and disappear is life changing to our, sometimes already, fragile confidence.
i don’t see it as vanity. I see it as noticing you can’t sit cross legged on the floor like you used to, for example.
It can be a jolt to your mortality and life ahead.

Everyone likes to feel attractive. 😐

The only answer to this is to be a rich celebrity, can’t believe Danni is 52, she has had work for sure but you can tell she has had the very best money can buy.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/22335049/the-one-show-fans-shocked-dannii-minogue-age/

I'm 57, with no work done. I'm even greying naturally, tho am going late like my mum.
I look older, more mature but I absolutely look like me. I don't understand this 'I don't look like me' concept. I'm not doubting it. But it just doesn't chime for me.

Aging is hard when it comes with illness and the death of those around you. That's hard. But not when your face develops some wrinkles. Surely that's natural?

Even if I had all the money in the world, I wouldn't want to look like Danii Minogue. I don't expect anyone to believe me, though!

Everyone ages differently that's why. It's called "bio individuality" or "because we are all different".

Can I ask why? Just curious as I’ve always thought she was stunning!

I don't like that tweaked shiny look @Loveablockheel that all the celebs have these days. It's not for me.

Sadly I agree. Like someone upthread said, having been just kind of meh / pretty ish in my teens and twenties - from my late 30s up until say 48 I think I looked great. Definitely younger and fresher than a lot of my friends and an attractive woman. Seem to be on a downward slope now I’m 51 sadly.

Fair enough @Sususudio I can see it’s a particular aesthetic that may not be to everyone’s taste.

I know quite a few women IRL who look like Danni at the same age and I have a good understanding of how and why. I also know plenty of women who have aged naturally, some who like to care for their skin and appearance and others who aren't bothered and I respect all women and what they prefer.

She is very much in the public eye and has been for 25+ years so celebrities are probably much more conscious of their appearance and how it can affect their paycheck.

I am not saying I agree with the social pressures, but people have always preferred beauty, twas ever thus. In every culture. Even babies prefer more symmetrical faces as it signals health and good genes.

@sweetsweetvowel you are being aggressive to @herewegoroundthebastardbush She made a perfectly valid point. That is also why most people have problems with their backs after about 38-years of age. The relevance is to be aware that we have many, many years beyond what our bodies evolved for. A useful reflection when obsessing about our lost youth. Were you being ironic when you selected your username. On you go then, you can strop at me now if it helps 🙄

Beauty does have some subjectivity of course, and fashion, depending on culture. But there are some objective ways we measure beauty too. It's a mix.
This is for human beauty and esthetics generally.

“ I finally have accepted and grown to like the way I look”. Such a beautiful statement and that acceptance is key.
What’s the point of bemoaning future events that you can’t control & may never happen anyway? You don’t have a crystal ball to show you what you will look like in the future.
Surely a better strategy is to love & accept yourself as you are, be grateful for what you have right now, and also focus on things you can control (re skincare, experts state sleep, water, exercise, nutrition, vitamin C, SPF & retinol).
Be grateful for your health. Getting older is a gift that not all of us receive.
And finally- there’s nothing more beautiful than a woman who’s comfortable in her own skin.
Whilst getting older may give you a few more wrinkles, it also gives you grace and wisdom, if you let it.

We look different because our skulls change their shape. If you think about a baby's skull (big eyes, undefined cheekbones, very short from nose bridge to chin) and compare it with a 20-30 yr old (defined jawline, good soace between eyebrow and lower eye socket, quite short from cheekbone to chin) and then look at a 60-70 yr old you'll see the face lengthens from under the eye socket to the lower jaw. That's why sometimes we don't recognise older people and why we look so different from how we did, even to ourselves. It's difficult to accept. Very difficult. It isn't just the pressure to look young. It's the bald fact the bones change their proportion.

"And finally- there’s nothing more beautiful than a woman who’s comfortable in her own skin.
Whilst getting older may give you a few more wrinkles, it also gives you grace and wisdom, if you let it." @Spamham

Hear, hear!

That’s Danni Minogue! She’s unrecognisable! She doesn’t look like the same person. At least her sister still looks like Kylie. One thing missing how you used to look, quite another to have a different face!

It's the middle of winter, post-Lockdown, post-Christmas. People are run down, tired, put on a few pounds and living on financial fumes. And you look at one friend you haven't seen for 4 years and despair. Yes - people age and change. No - it's still hard to guess who's in their 40's, 50's or 60's. But if it was that overnight for everyone, you'd have noticed a long time ago.

You state that like I have never had that leverage- I have but realised that much of it is pointless and it certainly doesn't lead to romantic love which was/is when it comes to physical connection, the only one I'm interested in. I am not terrified of judgment on my physical appearance, very much fear not being respected for my intelligence, I don't want to be a slave to male attention.
We are primed by the media to think women's looks are more relevant to the outcomes in their life than men and I think it is regressive to think biology drives everything and we have no control over our thoughts and actions - these fatalistic beliefs definitely benefit men more than women so IMO we need to be sceptical of this narrative.

I never said anything of the sort, I can't comment on how you look now or did in the past. Its also not about being terrified of judgement of physical appearance over being respected for your intelligence or being a slave to male attention. Its about recognising the nuance and complexity of women's experience, desire and feeling without resorting simplistic and reductive feminism of the "fuck the patriarchy" sort. You do understand that men also feel bad about getting older, changing and becoming less desirable or less like the self image the internalised over the past 30 + years? Perhaps your rather simplistic view of things is useful for you but I need to acknowledge a much richer range of feelings and thinking on this matter.

@OldPerson No that isn't the case at all it was her that repeatedly mention it and we laughed and commiserated and bonded over it all as well as all the wonderful things in our lives. She happens to be in good health and rather wealthy and I never said I was in despair, I said it freaked me out how much we change at this age, which is true, we do change and it is disconcerting. However if that is what you read into it then perhaps that says more about you and your true feelings then me.

The irony of people saying they just want to look like themselves so have some surgery. And yet Danii Minogue doesn't look like Danii Minogue any more!