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!

I think I am invisible to the other sex, but I don't care about that. I don't think I am invisible otherwise. I am quite confident and outgoing- immigrant so I have to put myself out there- and haven't noticed any changes.

@tallowspa OP, I take HRT, but I don't think it helps my looks, just the other menopausal stuff. There is a wealth of info on the Menopause forum, though.

I don't think you become invisible to the other sex either but itsall relative- a lot of 55 plus guys seem to think I'm pretty hot! Whereas the good looking 40 year old guy probably wouldn't

They do look firmer and fresher than most but they also still have those changes, the texture of their skin changes, not just wrinkles but they get old skin. Even someone as beautiful and youthful as Jennifer Lopez looks different to how she used to and of course its fine but it still happens to them, its less obvious but it still happens if you look.

@Sususudio I kind of agree on that, the HRT really helps my joint pain and flushing but I don't know how much of an impact it has on your looks, minor if any I guess.

I agree that it comes as a shock. I think I looked my absolute best at 40 and was very happy with the way I looked at 50, now in my mid 50s not so much. I have no wrinkles but a crepey neck and a sallow complexion. I have decided to really get fit and now weight train 6 days a week and do lots of cardio and have never felt better.

I would never consider Botox or any other tweakments. The older women I find the most beautiful are those who have embraced ageing rather than trying to fight it. To me people like Nicole Kidman look absurd and Jodie Foster looks beautiful.

I'm not sure it's about how pretty or beautiful you are. Older women can look lovely in the way older women do but when you see the changes in yourself you do have to acknowledge the hard fact that life is finite. You will die. Each day takes us closer and if you have a natural death each change in appearance is a reminder of that fact. We are changing appearance all our lives. I don't recognise myself in my baby pictures until I'm nearer 2 or 3, the same likely happens as we approach proper old age when our hair changes, our skin and face shape changes etc. It is a part of life but we don't have to feel comfortable with them and nobody will be as judgemental as ourselves on those changes.

This with bells on. Stop deriving so much of your worth from your appearance.

Name changed for this. I understand what you are saying and despite the posters saying it's because of internalised misogyny, it is a big change to get used to.

As women, especially when we have kids, our bodies change a lot through the years and it is a lot to get used to.

I always said I would age gracefully, I was thinking of wrinkles, which I have and don't mind.

But what really changes our faces is loss of collagen, which makes the face structure kind of collapse. In the space of 18 months I went from having the same face I always had, but with a few wrinkles and my lips seeming less full, to my mouth sliding lower down my face and my entire lower face seeming to have collapsed and looking haggard unless I was smiling!

It was a huge change to get used to - and it's not about appealing to men because I have absolutely zero interest in men!

The cause of loss of face volume is loss of collagen caused by lack of estrogen. (Same happens to our legs, and other bits).

HRT helps by keeping estrogen up.

Well injected fillers can lift the lower face back up and reduce the impact of aging whilst looking really natural. I did this to take me back to the me of 18 months earlier. It looks very natural.

I have wrinkles around eyes and on cheeks and those don't bother me at all. And I can live with my wrinkly neck. I just didn't like having a haggard looking face!

Since I went lockdown grey (well, white really, when i stopped dying my hair) I have noticed how invisible I have become. Very occasionally it does have an advantage, as when I am offered a seat on bus/train but mostly I feel that am regarded as an irrelevant old woman. I am in my 60s BTW.

I think there is a definite, subtle shift when people realise I am old.

@Teddleshon I do think being fit and strong make a lot of difference so I'm sure you'll have great results! I have always suffered from skin that tends to sallowness and last year I bought one of those LED masks to help fade acne marks faster and it also brightened up my skin a lot which was a nice bonus. Its obviously not a necessity but also it isn't invasive at all.

60-something here. I don't want to look younger... I just want to look a more pleasant version of older! Sag and fat loss means my face no longer conveys the mood I'm feeling. I can be striding along the street feeling perfectly cheerful and chipper, but a glance in a shop window as I pass shows a reflection of someone who has just been given tragic news and whose face is reacting with peculiar mixture of sadness and anger.

Not the OP but I think she means no surgery and treatment in the world is going to make you look genuinely youthful.

I read it that even with surgery they show the same changes as any other 50 plus woman, but yes maybe she means you can still tell they are over 50 even with work, mind you I wouldn’t mind looking like a 60 plus year old if I looked like Nigella with her peachy firm skin, great bone structure, firm jawline and luscious locks, the combination of great genetics and money really does help!

Big medal for all those who are too cool to care about anything as minor as how they look.

But I get it. I do. I've only in the last few years managed to be a weight I'm happy with, and my face looks so much better when it's slimmer. But now one of my eyelids is starting to look saggy and it's really saddened me that I waited so long to get my looks to where I felt confident, and it's going to be fleeting.

I actually think people in their 20s are far less confident than older people because they have been affected by the pandemic, WFH, social media and so on... They may be beautiful, but many have lost social skills.

Which LED mask did you buy? @tallowspa

😂

I'm 40 now and in the last five years I feel like I've aged 15. What's left of my hair losing colour, my face has become very round, more wrinkles than a raisin. I've got a good mate a decade older than me and you'd struggle to tell who's the oldest. Just the way it is though. I'm hoping it's hit me early and I'll grow into the way I look 😂

@Bluerisotto interesting, that's what's happened to me. I started menopause in my early 40s and kinda wish I had gone with HRT, but didn't bother because the symptoms weren't bad.

50 this year and deffo looking haggard.

I agree. I am 51 and even though I do get told I still look younger I feel my face is catching up with my age. Less so my body, but certainly need to do more active things to keep in some kind of shape!

Nigella does look amazing and must be some kind of super ager but even she doesn't wake up like that and has a ton of help, smoke and mirrors to achieve that look. You can see in candid photos of her that she does have facial sagging for example and lines but again she is still lovely.

Thanks for clarifying, if Jennifer Lopez has old skin god help the rest of us!

I got the current body one on sale but I think as long as it has the right wave lengths and maybe the infrared it doesn't matter which brand you get.

This is going to be controversial but we were looking at DHs mates 7/8 couples and their wives in a photo recently (we weren’t in it) and without fail the women were much. much better kept than the men. There is maybe a 2-4 year age difference but that does not account for the disparity. The women dress well, make themselves up well, largely take good care of themselves. I would say DH and I are the only exception to this as I have aged hugely in the last few years and he looks his best yet. But honestly who cares. Seriously aging is a good thing. I give less fucks. I have a much more peaceful time. The kids are so much more interesting as people. It is all good. Looks are not everything in life.

But at 45 you won't look anything like you did when you were 20 anyway

I'm 64 and youthfully unlined.

The man in my mirror is my Father!!