Is it Time to Change the Way we Talk About Ageing?

Last year we saw the emergence of a new trend in the beauty industry. Contrary to others, this one is not about denying or trying to hide the natural effects that aging has on our skin, but instead, it calls to embrace them.

This issue is the long-awaited, utterly necessary celebration of growing into your own skin — wrinkles and all. No one is suggesting giving up retinol. But changing the way we think about aging starts with changing the way we talk about aging. - Michelle Lee, Allure Magazine, August 24, 2017

Anti-ageing has been a beauty byword since the 1980s, when it was dreamed up by an advertising exec to sell products to older women. And as the business of fighting aging has consumed the culture, it has produced a secondary aversion — not just to the signs of aging but to the signs that we’re trying to stop the signs of aging. This is why the unnatural signs of face-lifts and Botox can be so unnerving: They remind us not only that we are all getting older but also that we’re trying so desperately not to be, and mostly failing.*

However, aging is not a medical condition we need to battle. It’s part of a natural process we all go through in life.

From a biological point of view, aging can’t be defined exactly, but the most widely accepted idea is that it is just a part of our life cycle: we are born, then go through childhood, adolescence and adulthood and, at a certain point in time, we begin to age.

The ageing process doesn’t start at the same time for everyone, and not even all the organs in the same person age at the same rate. It’s difficult to define ageing; it involves a loss of faculties, but it can bring benefits as well.*

We talk about ageing as a wide-ranging phenomenon: it is a physical process, but also a psychological one, and mainly a social one. As Susan Sontag suggests in her 1977’s essay ageing is largely a trial of the imagination. She believed that the anxiety and depression many women experience about ageing is caused by the way this society limits how women feel free to imagine themselves. For most women, Sontag wrote, ageing means a gradual process of sexual disqualification.*

However, growing older is a wonderful thing because it means that we get a chance, every day, to live a full, happy life. Wrinkles should be worn with pride, not shame. They stand as a testimony to our experiences.

So is it time to change the way YOU talk about aging?

Dr Gray’s approach to skincare is centred on making skin healthy and strong, so it can protect and defend itself naturally. Instead of slathering products on your face where they can only be marginally effective, Ao’s products optimize skin function.

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Sources:

The Ever-Changing Business of ‘Anti-Aging’ 
Allure Magazine Will No Longer Use the Term "Anti-Aging" 
What is ageing? 
Women and the Double Standard of Ageing