It’s a dangerous thing to say, but I’m going to say it:
We don’t know what women look like anymore — not real women, with real faces.
We do know, however, when we really like or even love someone who is older than we are, who has aged, and we consider them beautiful.
In our current culture, we can never be 100% sure who has had Botox, plastic surgery, or another type of face enhancement procedure. It’s so common that we’re often confused about what people actually look like without cosmetic work. We’ve lost the ability to know what is real, authentic and perhaps even beautiful.
Now mind you, if you partake in any of the above procedures, and you feel terrific, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because you are presenting yourself to the world in the way you want to be seen. Empowerment is different than just following the crowd out of fear or negative self-judgment. In the debate about cosmetic procedures and aging, we can forget that there are upsides, too, when they come from the right inner place.
But what if we do feel pressured to stay looking like a 30-something when we are 65 or 75 or 85? When that degree of life and time disparity is so clearly present in someone’s physical appearance and so common to see in our society, we just aren’t sure what a real 65-year-old looks like anymore. Never mind being able to appreciate her looks, her wisdom and her achievements.
If she is in the limelight in any way — celebrity or otherwise — it’s often her age that will be mentioned first. “Doesn’t she look good for ____”. In our youth-obsessed, age-obsessed world, have we forgotten that the majority of women will not or cannot do the enhancements that celebrities do?
But our role models and those we actually do see in print, in media, on TV, and in movies aren’t these real women that we know and love on a daily basis.
So again, we are faced (pun intended) with figuring out what works for us. My goal is to show you women who — it appears at least — embrace their age and their beauty so that you can aspire to feel good from the inside so that it is reflected on the outside.
