Will the latest wonder cream really reverse ageing as it is claimed to do? Alex Knight explores the portrayal of growing older in life and investigates the negativity surrounding the supposed problem.

 

It’s 2018 and it’s a cold, wintery day in January. It’s my 19th birthday and for the first time in my life, I feel old - knowing that this is my last year as a teenager before I’m officially an adult. Ridiculous, I know. I ‘still have the rest of my life ahead of me’ as people keep saying. We’re all told that beyond 21, it’s downhill. Why? Ageing is portrayed in society as something that is totally undesirable, but it happens to all of us - we can’t avoid it. The beauty industry drills into us these anti-ageing miracle products that turn back time but who decided that growing old was a bad thing?

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Once you hit a certain age, that’s it- your time’s up. The media, and society even, ignore you. You’re considered boring with nothing else to give to the world. The word ‘retirement’ says rest, relax, do nothing. There are many inspirational women in my life who do anything but rest in their later years. I spoke with 6 individuals who are all over sixty but do not let this get in their way one bit.

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“To me ageing is just that. It’s growing older”. Pauline Curwen is sixty-nine years old and volunteers at a local hospital; takes part in rallies and marches; is an active feminist and enjoys tai chi - “I have the freedom now to pursue my interests”.

Joan Lawson, aged 66, is a retired police clerk but now enjoys surrounding herself with family and spends her time sewing, gardening, volunteering and dancing- “embrace everything new and try all things that come your way”.

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Alasdair Turnbull, a 71-year-old musician who grew up in Glasgow, tells me how he’d “always thought this would be the best time of [his] life” “I think you should try to view it as a time to do what you haven’t done”.

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As a retired teacher who volunteers every day at various organisations, Sheila Harrison, 74, tells me she has “so many plans, [she has] no time to get old”.

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Aged 61, Jan Clarke, who works at a nursery full time as well as writing poetry, is going to “rock sixty”, “I’m exactly the same as I was yesterday”.

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Susan Carey, 62, works full time in biochemistry but is also a volunteer for Cats Protection- “I’ve got some life experience, I’ve become more tolerant and probably a better person”.

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Ageing will happen to all of us. You may have already looked in the mirror today and not had the most positive reflection on your skin, but I hate to be the one to break the news, but you will be ‘old’ one day. The older population is growing as we speak with a fifth of people in England already being over 60. This is expected to grow, and by next year over half of adults in the UK will be over 50, according to research by the charity AgeUK.

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It seems though, that the beauty industry is taking advantage of this with the global anti-ageing market set to increase to be worth $331 billion by 2021, according to Orbis Research. Women are conscious of their ageing as a recent survey by SWNS Digital of 1,800 women aged between 50 and 70 revealed they were willing to spend on average £1,783 a year on looking glamorous.

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Not all women feel the need to head to the skincare aisle to buy the latest miracle cream, but instead embrace ageing as just another chapter in their life. Aged 55 - Alyson Walsh, author, freelance journalist and former fashion editor of Good Housekeeping magazine tells me why she created her blog exploring fashion for older women, ‘That’s Not My Age’ and later her two books ‘Style Forever’ and ‘Know Your Style’ “I started in 2008 to celebrate the creed ‘style begins at 40,’ to prove that midlife had evolved and discuss the issues of age, fashion and culture” she tells me “I felt that there was a gap online for women of my age and beyond”. She tells me of how the industry is beginning to evolve “Things have slowly changed and now we are seeing older models in ad campaigns and on the runways” but she explains how we still have a way to go “Brands use one grey-haired, 70-year-old model and think they’ve ticked the ‘age box’”.

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A similar burden surrounds men as they grow old too. I spoke with David Evans, aged 63, to hear his opinion on the matter of ‘anti-ageing’. As the creator of the successful ‘Grey Fox’ blog which receives around 40,000 page views a month, David has also worked with numerous brands including Marks & Spencer, Jo Malone and House of Fraser, and is passionate about style for older men. “I think the term is vaguely insulting” he tells me. “It assumes that age is a bad thing, something to be treated or avoided” “I’ve no wish to try to avoid age - not only is it an impossible task but also age is a privilege not a threat”. He explains how the industry is not at the end of the journey quite yet “Overall the industry ignores the fact that 47% of consumer spending is by people over 50 years of age. Even this commercial reality doesn’t shake the industry out of its prejudices”.

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I wonder how I will feel on my 20th birthday. It will be the end of my teenage years but the start of my official adulthood. At the end of the day, despite all the creams, superfoods and Botox in the world, we are all getting old. There are still 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. We can’t slow down time whatever we put on our faces. Let’s just embrace it.