Why do you think most people have younger looking skin these days than in the past?

[dianamoonyan]

Looking at pictures of actresses and family from the 70's and 80s it is noticable that women (and men) often looked older than people of a similar age now. I am not talking about them having old fashioned hairstyles, hair dye or clothing but the actually quality of the skin and facial contours.

I know that today some women have botox or filler but most women and men do not, I don't and yet my skin at 47 is still pretty much as it was when I was younger (plump, no lines, sagging or discolouration) as is that of my husband and many of my friends and colleagues. I do think that looking your age is more than just what your skin is like but in this post I am referring strictly to skin ageing quality.

I am just wondering what people think the main reason for people actually looking younger or at least having much less aged skin is outside of cosmetic surgery or injections, which if anything I think are more popular in much younger people and seem to be pro-ageing on them. It doesn't seem popular at all in most women my age in real life.

Is it down to better diets, less pollution, people not smoking, use of SPF or other topical skincare, improvements and availability of HRT, better diets, less stress, less drinking, people having less children than in the past?

When I go back even further I do notice that my parents generation look younger than say their parents at the same age and this is again not just down to hair colouring or styles but how the skin actually looks, Obviously that generation saw 2 world wars and the stress must have been massive.

My mum lived in severe poverty in the 60s as a child. (Irish immigrant parents). No central heating and her and her siblings all caught TB.

My husband's grandparents had two rooms and no central heating, indoor plumbing or hot water in England in the 1960s.

The grandparents both had jobs, grandfather had one full time job and grandmother had four part time jobs,

ITV did a series on children living without heating and hot water with no bed of their own and mould ok the walls etc last year I think.

Poverty is the issue, not the decade.

The 90s @Saschka!

Regarding fruit in the 50s, one of my dad's "You don't know you're born!" type statements is "I didn't even see a banana until I was 10!"

Diet
Smoking
Sun damage

"I would also say that people didn't contract illnesses more often without it."

Well, when you're cold you're more vulnerable to viruses, so I'm not sure this is true.

On the other hand, central heating can be very drying and bad for the skin and aircon, which many modern workplaces have, is even worse.

It was seen as a human right to smoke back then, and if patients couldn’t leave the ward, they “had” to be allowed to smoke on the ward. I remember the smoking ban coming in, there was a huge fuss about how unfair it was on bedbound patients who smoked heavily (to be clear, the fuss was being made by these patients, not the staff).

Mental health wards still allow smoking now! Because some patients are detained, and can’t be allowed off premises to smoke.

There was a banana disease, Panama Wilt, in the 1950s that killed off the main cultivar, the Grosmichel banana. Bananas were not widely available until the Cavendish became popular in the 1960s.

Central heating wasn’t out of the ordinary, no, but it wasn’t anything like universal. We only had it downstairs from the 80s in the house where we lived till the mid 90s (we weren’t badly off by any means) and my grandparents who died in the late 90s never got it.
I don’t think posters are confusing their decades, I think you are generalising too much from your own experience.

Plenty of bananas in our bit of Surrey in the 1950s. One variety got wiped out and was replaced by others. I had sliced banana with "cream off the top" for my supper. 😊

Well, they weren’t widely available in South Yorkshire! My grandparents owned a grocers shop, if bananas had been available at the fruit and veg market they’d have bought them.

DH has just confirmed that bananas were also readily available in Hull in the 50s. Banana custard was their family favourite.
One variety disappeared, but was replaced by others. I even had a friend whose Dad worked on the banana boats. 😊

Many things, more people now spend less time out of doors, many people wear sunscreen, lack of smoking,and all of the treatments now available.

Maybe Mexborough was a banana blackspot 🤷‍♀️

Diet. They are alot of stodgy fried food back then but we eat healthier now

Well I do know Mexborough quite well.... 😂😂😂
Amazing wine shop in Thrybergh in the 70s though.

I had thought only celebrities used Botox, since returning to work have been shocked at number of colleagues, some quite young who do it. Seems majority of women do contouring, fake lashes etc these days too.

@Petrine yep plenty of my family didn’t get central heating until the 80s - some later than that. My Nan never got it. Ice inside the windows when you woke up in the late 90s!

I also have lots of friends who purchased houses after 2005 where there was no central heating. My friend bought a house 2 years ago with gas fires in the lounge and dining room only. No other heat- they probably used plug in electric fires.

Working class background in fairly affluent area in the South of England.

Good skincare, SPF daily, staying out of the sun, not smoking or being around smoke.

And Botox.

Smoking,generally harder tougher living conditions too.

I think if you have a tiny amount ie 0.5 ml in each cheek it doesn't change the way the light reflects off the face. Not saying it isn't noticeable in other ways if you look closely but that's what I've had and it definitely hasn't changed my face in that way but I notice friends who have had larger amounts have very shiny cheeks. My entire face is pretty shiny from using chemical exfoliants though. Not as shiny as when I used tret though...that was insane.

I agree - even if they try to take care of their skin in other ways and have treatments they tend to have a sort of hollow look to their eyes along with extra wrinkles and lines around their mouths. I find their skin tends to look drier than non-smokers too.

Smoking and generally harder lives.

I think it’s very hard to tell from a photo.

Do you think todays 80-90 year olds look older than we will at the same age? Because they are the ones who were in their 40s in the 1970s, when the op reckons everyone looked a lot older than 40 year olds today.

I see many 80-90 year olds looking pretty good, still having their hair done and taking care with their clothes.

There was a Barnardos report recently about a million children who don't have a bed of their own, and a Buttle U.K. State Of Child Poverty report which talked about families not being able to afford gas or electricity and chikdren not being able to go to school because they didn't have school uniform.

Adverse Childhood Events cast a long shadow over people's lives and I don't think it's correct to assume that people had fruit or heating in any decade. Including this one.