What would you advise your 30 year old self?

[BroodyBridget]

Looking back now, what do you wish you could tell yourself at 30 years old?

Wear less make-up?
Follow a particular skin care regime?
Drink more water?
Start the Botox?

I'm 30 and have a very lax attitude to health, style and beauty! Wondering whether it's time to spice my regime up a little bit to help the ageing process...

I would say you are going to get fatter and that's ok. Don't worry about Botox and fillers - it doesn't actually make you look younger, it just makes you look like someone who is middle aged but has had Botox and fillers. I'd say you are going to feel pressure to not eat and try and look 'young', which is fucking outrageous when the men the same as age as you won't feel that pressure. And I'd say ignore it all and embrace growing older.

Wear Spf factor 50 every single day you leave the house or are at work by a window. Every, single, day.

On the face that should say.

Wear spf 50 every day. Not just the spf 15 in your moisturiser.

Save up every penny you have for laser hair removal on your legs. I WISH TO GOD I had done this at 30. Instead I waited until 40 and it changed my life. I have really very decent legs indeed but used to spend all summer roasting and sweating in hideous chinos because i have hairy legs that flared up with hideous ingrowns every time I shaved or waxed. It’s a revelation to me now how cool and free I feel wearing shorts and dresses all summer. All those years wasted, and when my legs were a decade younger and therefore better than they are now!!! (Getting a tiny bit varicose-y!)

@shrumps

I would say you are going to get fatter and that's ok. Don't worry about Botox and fillers - it doesn't actually make you look younger, it just makes you look like someone who is middle aged but has had Botox and fillers. I'd say you are going to feel pressure to not eat and try and look 'young', which is fucking outrageous when the men the same as age as you won't feel that pressure. And I'd say ignore it all and embrace growing older.

I’d agree with all of that and add look at yourself in the mirror and rejoice in what you see because in ten years’ time you’ll wish you still looked like it. That applies at any age, incidentally.

Please enjoy your 30s. It was the best decade of my life and the only one I’d relive if I had the chance.

I was already doing spf 50 at 22 so retinol & vitamin c.

Don’t gain weight. It’s so hard to lose it once the scales keep creeping up.

SPF religiously and take care of your eye area too.

Keep exercising, especially flexibility type exercise. Work on your posture...you’ll get neck wrinkles from that newly appeared double chin if you keep slouching or have text neck.

Keep moisturising. Ditch makeup wipes. Nourish your body from the inside out. Reinvent your style - don’t cling to your 20 something fashions, and don’t become frumpy. You are still so young!

Less booze. I more or less stopped drinking at around 31, 32 and I am really happy I did. It made me really aware of the effect that alcohol had on my body, even though I had only a big drinker at university (i.e. drinking until drunk, getting hangovers). If I could turn back time I would have stopped the booze - more or less - when I graduated.

Other things I'd tell myself are not beauty related, apart from one terrible haircut that seemed to take at least 2 years to grow out!

Buy more classic clothes in natural fibres before they become overpriced! Never buy anything that doesn’t fit perfectly, especially shoes. You will never use all these pots and potions so don’t buy them. I was your age over 10 years ago and I have just had a lockdown sort out and chucked loads of cosmetics out that I’ve had since my 20s, I have lots of shoes & clothes from then that I still wear though - if they fit, are well made: nice fabric and fairly ‘classic’ you can wear stuff for years - but what suits you not what’s in fashion.

Moisturise
Don’t follow fashion rigorously
Look after teeth
Eat well - learn to enjoy food, cook well and eat what you like infrequently
Don’t diet
Exercise within reason but not to detriment of joints

Cut out as much sugar as you can.
Keep staying out of the sun - it does pay off.
Buy better quality clothes and less of them.
You'll never be able to walk in heels so give up now.
Buy a bike and use it now, don't wait.
Less black, more colour - it really suits you.

Drink more water.
Use more sunscreen.
Starts using a retinol

Stop getting so drunk that you smoke...

Teeth. 30 years later they are nearly worn away.
Factor 50
Keep up the yoga-menopause is going to fuck up your bones and flexibility.

Don't smoke.
Wear spf every day.
Watch your weight- damn I wish I had.
Watch the alcohol- too much gives you redness & thread veins.

Actually I didn't smoke & I did wear spf every day but I've got friends who didn't follow this advice & are now having to get Botox regularly while I don't.

Some really interesting points here! And I definitely need to take some of them on board, particularly the flexibility exercises and the SPF50 for my face daily.

Keep the tips coming 😀

Nobody has to have Botox, it’s a choice. I do wish we could rid ourselves of shame about the signs of ageing. It’s OK to get older, it’s OK have wrinkles. The most attractive women are those who are comfortable in their own skin.

Look after your teeth and get them straightened. They make such a difference. Ive had poor teeth all my life and bad experience at dentists and wish I could go back to my twenties before they started going wrong.

Spf.

Don't let the weight start creeping on, in 20 years time it will be a lot harder to shift.

Take up strength training. Stop focusing so much on cardio and build some muscle.

Don't do a slimming type diet. Just eat a sensible amount of good quality real food and exercise, find the balance early. Forget the WW, Slimming World and other soul destroying diet plans that you're about to waste 20 years of your life on.

Remember to laugh and sing and dance. The next 20 years are going to be tough, but when you come out the other side the sun will shine again and you'll be a massively stronger person with real solid boundaries and a sense of your own worth that you don't yet have. The struggle and pain will be worth it.

Look at what you’re eating. It makes a huge difference to your blood sugar, hormones, sleep, digestion. All of which will affect how you look and feel.

But also, you’re fine as you are. Look after yourself

Don't overdo the eyebrow plucking. After a while they may not grow back.

Find a style of hair or clothing which really suits you instead of copying others.

Watch your weight and diet without going overboard. Get into the habit of taking some exercise each day.