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!

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

This is possibly the best advice I've read on Mumsnet ever.

Again I understand that but for me it isn't really about that at all, its how I've come to know and view myself. I am well aware of how society conditions women.

Its more than losing beauty, its also tied up with knowing that you are getting old and closer to death. Of course it is natural and inevitable but its also a loss.

Yeah. I'm pushing at 51 and really struggling. I didn't realise that how you look just changes. I thought I would look like me but older. But the whole of my face has changed. Not happy to know how quickly it will change even more!

Sick of all the women slagging women like me off for struggling like this, saying its society that has conditioned me to want to look young so that men will shag me.

No, I'm fucked off about it because I like shagging men. I like it a lot. In fact, I bloody love it. I like men finding me attractive as I want to have sex with men. And its fucking hard to know men wanting to shag me is coming to an end. There are far fewer of them. And its hard to know that the men who will still want to shag me, I do not find so attractive either.

If you don't like shagging men, or you have a man you love and are attracted to, to shag, then lucky for you that you aren't arsed about ageing. But that's circumstance, not your virtue or you being a better feminist.

For those of us not in that position, its bloody hard and it should be ok to say so without being harangued by other women.

Totally agree here we go.

Some of my clients would LOVE to get to 55. Honestly you won’t be “hot” any more. Who ducking cares?

Im glad - was mortifying having men perving and slavering over me.

😂😂 I am a regular MNer and just changed my name for this, it just randomly popped in my head (not sure what that means!) I'd be happy to give some info but as I am on the West Coast in the USA I am leaving for work. Can check back later.

I also encourage women to embrace who they are but depending on what is bothering them, usually you can make some improvements at least in the surface of the skin.

I also think women should age in whatever ways they find healthy and procedures are definitely not necessary. Eating whole foods and exercising go a long way to help our skin. Of course a lot of older women are dealing with stress which shows up on our skin.

And this is exactly the sort of poster I am railing against.

Not its not because I have been conditioned by society.

Its because I have evolved through biology as a heterosexual woman to be attracted to men and to like having sex with them. I want to have sex with men who are attracted to me and who I am attracted to. That's a perfectly normal and healthy desire to have.

I am grateful for this post OP. I am hitting 40 this year and was feeling pretty depressed about it. Not because of looks really but more a ‘where has my life gone’
I don’t know where it is coming from tbh. I think I have probably looked better in the past few years than I ever have but it’s like I was worried I will wake up on my 40th birthday looking unrecognisable. It’s really superficial I know and I hate feeling like this!

Ah see now maybe that's why I can't empathise. I don't want to die per se but I'm not afraid of it. I'm with Frida Kahlo on that one: "I hope the exit is joyful; and I hope never to return."

I'm much happier with how I look than when I was younger.

I found photos recently from uni. I really believed I wasn't pretty. OMG looking back, we were all so pretty and fresh-faced!

It is what it is. The alternative isn't an attractive prospect.

😂😂God help you when you get to my age then (almost 65). I'm wrinkled, got jowls and fat, but can't do much about it. I put my make-up on and know that I'm making some effort.

I'm another one who was never a 'looker' at any age. Even the kindest of men would only call me 'handsome' on a good day (I'm female!). My face has now fallen, I've got wrinkles and hardly any eyes (I'm 63). But I feel my face now has character, and people do tend to pick up on that. Ok, I'm never going to pull Tom Hiddleston (unless he is struck blind. And possibly deaf), but I have become happy in my skin for the first time, probably because I am no longer expected to look gorgeous?

70 next year. Don't want to depress you any more than you are already, OP, but gird your loins for what happens in your 60s....

The good news is you can improve the appearance and texture of your skin a lot if you are willing to invest some time and money.

Hardly good news, just an opportunity to sow little seeds of doubt into womens' minds & generate potential customers for the hungry capitalist machine.

Yes, more like terrible news. Hey women, you must work even harder to look acceptable to society. Fuck off.

I'd settle for no more spots, I am nearly 40 ffs.

Again that kind of attitude is very much dependent on your own circumstances and so it isn't a useful measuring stick. Also Kahlo who was a remarkable woman and incredible artist but she was also a depressive and attempted suicide twice, her life was not a happy one.

Our society has outstripped our evolution by som considerable distance. Most human women would have been dead long before their fertility declined not so long ago. Whereas most of us can now expect a post fertile period at least as long as our fertile one. Most of us will show signs of age therein. Are we all to spend it howling like mother Gothel because evolution?

I couldn’t agree more with this

I celebrated my 50th birthday feeling good about myself then in the following year the shit hit the fan health wise and everything that could go wrong did.
I’m now 61 - still here! It may not look it but I think my body is amazing- it does what it’s supposed to do, most of the time, every day. It lets me work, walk, play with my grandchildren and a whole lot of other stuff. Don’t let yourself vanish-fill your space- love life and be kind to yourself

I don't see why men wouldn't want to have sex with you just because you are getting older. Maybe not a 20 year old (unless he has a milf or gilf obsession).

1. Women on tv NEED to stop getting Botox. It gives everyone a very warped perception and makes it seem ‘ugly’ when someone is just aging naturally. I applaud Pamela Anderson for refusing Botox and going make-up free, and looking her age, it’s sad it’s even ‘news’.

2. it’s a privilege to grow old, the alternative is far worse. I’ve lost people over the years and am grateful for my wrinkles.

3. I’m more confident now than I’ve ever been and get more attention from men than I’ve ever had. Confidence doesn’t need any kind of treatment.

You might have a bit of a wait ahead, I'm 48 & still have oily, acne prone skin!

I don't think it's uncommon to be less sanguine about getting older than we might have imagined ourselves being when we were young. I certainly thought I'd be more accepting. But there are far worse things that can happen as we age than not looking in our prime any more. Enjoy what you have, is my advice.

I still think women look better than men as they get older, on average.

Until this thread, I thought it was just me.
I aged 5 years in 1 around being 49.
Until then I had a younger than my age, looking face.

Honestly it's so unimportant. I have never understood so many women who give a fuck about aging and changing. It's a privilege to get to this age. Wrinkles and jowls are part of that privilege. I'm sure you have friends and family who have died too young to worry about such insignificant shite. If not lucky you.

I think her life was both happy and unhappy. It was lived. Fully. As fully as it could be given her physical and mental health difficulties. I think expecting our lives to be completely happy (like expecting our faces to be ever youthful) is a fool's game tbh.

What a ridiculous response. Though I note you needed to change tack from ' its all social conditioning' which I guess is a tacit omission from you that in fact its not. Even if you haven't the humility or moral courage to explicitly recognise this.

What relevance is it that median life expectancy used to be lower? I am not bloody dead am I?

People are allowed to feel shit about things that have been important parts of their lives and which they are losing. If you haven't the human empathy or understanding to get that, that's a fault in you, not them.

I do hope you never get a job as a grief counsellor as you'd be all ' well people used to die so much earlier, so stop howling.'