50+ women style and natural face inspiration

[Unrepentantfarter]

Inspired by @Lentilweaver and @Janbluesuary's comments on a thread yesterday...

I don't want to do anything to my face and need some inspiration for stylish women in their 50s, 60s and 70s who both look their age and look fantastic. I'm white, slim, with fairly thin skin that's prone to lines.

Kirsten Scott Thomas in Slow Horses is my current reason to keep away from Botox and other 'tweakments' as she looks incredible and wears her lines beautifully. (Sophie Okonedo is breathtaking of course, but has no wrinkles whereas I most definitely do!)

Who else can I look up to?

If I make it to my 70s 80s, I may well have some fun and go the full Iris Apfel. Don't yet have the confidence to stand out quite so much!!

Kirsten might have had Botox- her forehead is quite smooth!

Nicola Walker. I don't know whether she has tweaks - her face seems to change a lot, but she's a great actor and part of that is appearing to shapeshift. Anyway, she has a confidently 50+ appearance and looks good imo.

Helen Mirren (79) is always wheeled out as a glorious example of looking your age with panache! Deservedly so, but it helps to have an amazing bone structure and ideally proportioned features.

Cameron Diaz is ageing like a fine wine, without (it seems) any help.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kkfsyg

I thought Cameron Diaz looks like she has had some tweaks. I'm no expert so happy to be corrected, but her cheeks look a strange shape now.

Isabella Rossellini is always stylish. It's lovely to see someone so famed for her beauty to be comfortable with aging naturally.

Also, Joely Richardson.

I honestly would assume that any woman in the public eye has had stuff done. Some women who get lauded for ageing naturally I just think, come on! I think Susan Sarandon was mentioned on one of these threads and if she's avoided 'work' then I'm a lump of wood. I'm afraid I think the same about Helen Mirren.

I'd look around you and find friends who you think are ageing well and see what they do. My mum I would say looked genuinely beautiful into her 70s. In her case HRT made a huge difference, you could see the change when her doctor finally refused to prescribe it any more, she was 83.

Cameron is beautiful but that is not the jawline of a middle aged woman who has had no work done.
Same with Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon as a PP said.

Helen Mirren has had a full facelift, along with other things.

As far as I know, she said she hasn't but wouldn't rule it out. That was about 10 years ago. Definitely doesn't look like she's had one since then, she's been photographed often and no pictures show any sudden smoothing!

I did think she might've had a chest/neck lift about 20 years ago.

No she has been open about having a face lift, and it is very obvious that she has had one.

Hmm actually I googled and now I can’t find anything about it, and yet I was convinced that I had read about her facelift a few years ago.
I am sure she has had one though, the lines on her face go upwards, in a slightly “wrong” way.

Emma Thomson is ageing naturally and it suits her, she has her mother’s beautiful bones.

I think the ones who haven’t had things done look better personally, or at least look as if they haven’t. Meryl Streep springs to mind, as does Naomi Watts. They have some lines but look fabulous and beautiful still in a different way to when they were younger, and don’t look odd like some of the others.

Excuse me? I'm almost 60 and I have a defined jawline with only the tiniest hint of a jowl

Not everyone loses their jawline. CD is very lean. I think that makes a huge difference to the jawline

How about looking at women not in the glamour business? Every actress will have had tweakments.

Like Shami Chakrabarti.

No one in my friend and family circle has done anything to their face, and neither have I.

I’m sure she has probably had work done and if she has it’s very good because she looks very natural and not pumped up like other celebs, I think Michelle Collins looks fabulous, I think she is really stylish as well, she is 62. She was on the One Show the other week, I thought she looked amazing.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/tv/michelle-collins-left-speechless-after-30826634

The irony is that all these fantastic women have still all had some work done - it just isn't obvious. It just makes it even harder imo bcos it still means intervention/work is required if you want to look as well preserved as they do. That's fine if that's what you want to do. It's just disappointing & maintains the fallacy & unrealistic bar of what's considered acceptable. It's as much of a lie as it being blatantly obvious you have a trout pout when you think about it. I'm not anti pple doing w'ever they want to themselves - it cld be argued that all beauty treatments like colouring your hair are "interventions" so what's the difference. FWIW I want to look good as I age still but just feel a bit disappointed that what's considered the standard of gracefully ageing still involves more invasive smoke & mirrors & women containing to lie that they haven't had artificial help.

Mary Beard. She hasn't had any work done.
I don't need or want to look like women in the glamour industries, and I don't believe filler is the same as colouring your hair.

Charlotte Rampling

I think @svalbard is spot on. Plus most famous actors etc start off way above average in looks and have access to all sorts of things that regular people don’t like the best of personal trainers, and non surgical cosmetic treatments like expensive facials/ skincare. Just because people see some grey or white hair and some wrinkles doesn’t mean the person hasn’t invested a huge amount into how they look or that their look is achievable for regular people. It’s fine to look at them for style inspiration but I think it would be impossible to live up to that standard for most people.

These are no longer alive but pretty sure Jane Birkin, Lauren Bacall and Françoise Hardy never had any work. Nowadays, Charlotte Rampling. Funnily, three of those are French/lived in France.

Assuming they didn’t, to look as good as them when they were older, you would have had to look like one of what were considered to be the most attractive women in the world when you were younger though.

I know. There is a natural advantage there. But also, potentially, more pressure to keep that up. Hardy never dyed her hair, it seems. White and shorter.

I am Indian, so quite a few of my models for aging well are also Indian. Madhur Jaffrey looks great in her 80s.