Anti-aging skincare products have been around for decades, enforcing patriarchal beauty standards that appeal to the male gaze. These beauty standards are linked to an unobtainable, everlasting proximity to youth and perpetuate ageist ideas of beauty. These beauty standards are affecting younger consumers more than ever before.
What is Aging Beautifully?
Recently, while shopping with one of my friends, we ventured into a local beauty store. She was on the hunt for a new SPF. As someone who has always required a strong sunscreen due to easily burning, I know a thing or two about which SPFs are effective. I was happy to share my recommendations, knowing they would protect her against UV rays.
While hunting through the store to find the sun-care aisle, my friend began talking about how she started implementing retinol and vitamin E into her daily skincare routine. To put things into perspective, my friend is 21 years old, hence younger than the dermatology-recommended age of 25 to start using retinoids.
I expressed my concern about her using these products because I wanted to make sure she knew the effects this could have on her skin. Especially since she had expressed how her skin had become much thinner since using these products. Now, I’m no skincare expert, but that doesn’t sound ideal.
My response was that signs of physical aging would appear regardless of using so-called “anti-aging” products. My friend responded, “I know, but I want to age beautifully.”
Something about that wording got me thinking. What is “aging beautifully”? And why is not doing such a deep-rooted fear for women in particular?
Do I blame my friend for thinking this way? Of course not!
It’s impossible, particularly in Western culture, to avoid anti-aging propaganda and displays of systemic ageism.
Is Physical Aging a Centuries-Long Curse?
The idea that a product or routine can prevent aging has been around for centuries. One of the earliest recorded anti-aging routines comes from that of Cleopatra in 69 B.C. She bathed in donkey’s milk to soften her skin. Other historical anti-aging methods were recorded in 16th-century France. It was common among French women to use raw meat to minimize wrinkles.
Note how, even historically, the anti-aging routines recorded all concern women, something still prevalent in today’s anti-aging skincare marketing.
Western beauty standards define a rigid set of “idyllic” features, such as light skin, rosy cheeks, and youthfulness. Racism, classism, and ageism are at the root of these standards, and their influence is still visible today. Anti-aging skincare stemmed from these beauty standards and has continued to fuel systemic ageism for decades.
The type of anti-aging skincare we see today was developed in the 1930s by Helena Rubinstein. She marketed her moisturizer as something that would prevent physical signs of aging. This displays how, even in its origin, anti-aging skincare has always been about profit. Aiming to capitalize on what is considered the most dreaded thing that could happen to a woman: physical aging.
Your Insecurities Are Making the Skincare Industry Rich
Jessica Defino, The Review of Beauty by Jessica Defino“It’s physically impossible to anti-age. And to try to anti-age is to be a consumer for life. So this is a very capitalist idea.”
The marketing of anti-aging products is highly effective. It fabricates new insecurities for women to fear. These insecurities cause women to dislike their natural features. Once these insecurities are adopted, it becomes easier to convince women to buy a product. A product that promises to alleviate these concerns.
In 2023, the anti-aging industry made an estimated 47 billion U.S. dollars. Doing so by profiting off of manufactured insecurities.
Centuries of cultural conditioning have pushed the belief that physical aging is undesirable. This has led to it being seen as an inevitable curse, to which the only antidote is a 12-step skincare routine.
With all these ‘antidotes’ for aging comes the idea that if you are not applying anti-aging skincare or are not aging in a way considered graceful, you and you alone are to blame for the visible signs of aging on your face. Anti-aging culture tells you that you could have prevented those fine lines if you had bothered to take the time to invest in a ‘good’ skincare routine and that not doing so is lazy.
What’s it Got to do With The Patriarchy?
If you think back to any anti-aging skincare advertisement you’ve seen, I can guarantee that you are most likely to have pictured women as the subject of such. Anti-aging products overwhelmingly target women and AFAB people in their marketing.
Why is this the case? Patriarchal beauty standards!
Beauty standards utilize ageism to create an unobtainable standard for women to appeal to the male gaze.
In Western culture, a woman’s worth is increasingly tied to her perceived attractiveness. The feminine ideal of attractiveness is one having a close proximity to youth. This idea has created a culture where systemic ageism thrives in almost every sector of society.
Ageism is a huge issue that has been looming for decades. It manifests in many ways. One example is the lack of employment opportunities for older women. Another is the portrayal of older women as ‘ugly, old witches’ in films, creating an ‘old hag trope.’
The ageist beauty standards we see today are enforced by heteronormativity and the male gaze, whereby women’s attractive qualities are dictated by what is perceived to be appealing to straight men. And as we all know too well from the OkCupid statistics, men, regardless of their age, are seemingly more attracted to women in their twenties. This exposes that the societal beauty standard set for women is youth or proximity to such.
These beauty standards for women are visible throughout the media. People often digitally enhance women’s faces to remove any physical signs of aging. This pushes an unrealistic standard of how women should age. What’s most striking is how much the editing contrasts with images of men in the media, where people consider looking ‘rugged’ and showing signs of aging desirable.
OMG! She Looks “So Good For Her Age”
Beauty and youth are often associated with a woman having good morals as opposed to aging, which is associated with isolation and evilness. Something cultivated into our belief system from the moment we watched any princess movie as a child. The message we were fed was that a pretty princess equals good and that an old and ugly witch equals bad. The so-called ‘halo effect’ describes this phenomenon. It is a cognitive bias that causes people to perceive attractive individuals as possessing more favorable personality traits. An effect that most likely took root from centuries of anti-aging propaganda.
A more current example of this type of anti-aging messaging occurs through discourse around celebrities aging ’gracefully’. As someone engaged in celebrity pop culture online, I find it hard to avoid the constant stream of posts claiming that “unproblematic celebrities age like fine wine”. Such claims are often attached to images of the likes of Anne Hathaway or Hillary Duff, among many others.
Why is this an issue?
Because it pushes the idea that showing signs of physical aging, like developing fine lines, is the result of being a problematic person and not the result of time and/or DNA. This presents a dystopian view of aging, where society considers women in their mid-thirties “old.” The public reacts with shock when these women don’t fit the stereotype of the “old hag” that society expects once their collagen production declines after 25. Not to mention that most celebrities undergo vast dermatologist procedures or cosmetic surgery to maintain youthfulness.
“We’ve learned to pretend to celebrate older women, but we haven’t learned to accept what happens naturally to their skin. The new message is: ‘It’s okay to age but not to have a wrinkled face.’”
Jessica Defino, The Review of Beauty by Jessica Defino
Very often, after an older celebrity woman appears in the media, discourse around their “age-defying looks” will begin to dominate the conversation rather than the actual context of their appearance. Recently, Teri Hatcher, iconic James Bond and Desperate Housewives actress, appeared on This Morning to celebrate the reimagined 3D release of Coraline in cinemas, in which she starred as both the Mother and the Other Mother. Quickly after her appearance on the show, rather than audiences celebrating her achievements, the overwhelming response was to celebrate the 59-year-old actress’s youthful look.
These comments disguise themselves as age positivity. However, when people celebrate a woman for not looking her age, it feels backhanded and ageist. What this really exposes is that viewers’ expectations of what a 59-year-old looks like are often unrealistic and influenced by ageist ideas. The fact is not that Teri Hatcher doesn’t look her age, but it’s that she doesn’t fit what societal beauty standards will tell you a 59-year-old looks like, which, hint hint, is ‘unattractive’.
The Impact on the Youth of Today
While anti-aging skincare and the ageist marketing around it have been prevalent in Western culture for decades, recent years have showcased how the target age for such products has been getting younger and younger.
Of course, an industry that functions on consumerism would want to expand its consumer numbers by targeting younger women in their early twenties. Selling them the idea that you don’t need wrinkles to use anti-aging skincare, but you need it as a preventative measure. In fact, Gen Z now spends more money on skincare than any other generation.
This marketing becomes more concerning when it targets younger girls with such ideas.
Earlier this year, there was an outcry on social media when young Gen Alpha girls began posting complex skincare routines on social media. Their skincare routines included anti-aging products from luxurious skincare brands, the most notable being from Drunk Elephant.
Shoppers soon began referring to these young girls as “Sephora kids”. They coined the term after noticing an influx of girls under the age of 15 in Sephora.
This is concerning because ageist beauty standards have now trickled their way down to those who have no signs of physical aging. Dermatologists also warn that using anti-aging skincare products on pre-adolescent skin is dangerous. Especially with the recent boom in skincare products containing acids and chemical peels. This displays how deep-rooted the fear of aging is and how damaging it can be for future generations.
Acknowledging the Reasons you use Anti-Aging Skincare
Women who buy anti-aging skincare are not to blame for the vast amount of ageism we see today. It’s also not to say that skincare cannot be used for therapeutic and relaxing self-care routines.
It’s genuinely difficult not to buy into the anti-aging industry. We’ve been conditioned to dislike certain features of our bodies. When a skincare product promises to “fix” them, it’s tempting to believe it. However, it’s important to ask yourself why you dislike your aging features. Understanding where that dislike comes from is key. The answer will always be from patriarchal ideals of femininity.
“It’s systemic ageism — not your face — that makes aging an agonising and emotionally draining experience for so many”
Jessica Defino, The Review of Beauty by Jessica Defino
Aging happens, no matter how many anti-aging products you use. It may be time to embrace your age.
And if Julia Fox says, “getting old is hot”, then getting old is hot!
