Sophie Langrish explores the relationship between beauty and age, discussing the effects that the skincare industry and ‘anti-ageing’ products have on women’s perceived senses of beauty.

“This suncream visibly reduces wrinkles and dark spots” claims the proudly labelled ‘Age Correct SPF’; “Clinically proven to instantly reduce fine lines by 23%” boasts another; “77% of women saw a reduction in the appearance of deep wrinkles”, a third product joins the clamour. All basing their marketing on the assumption that no one wants to become old; everyone wants to stay young. Or rather, society wants you to stay young.

In the present day, ageism – discrimination against a person based on age, often particularly pronounced in attitudes towards older people – has reached new prominence. Not only does this ageism manifest itself in physical consequences, such as loss of career opportunities, or receiving prejudicial treatment by others, but it can also cause psychological distress, having been linked to increased stress and heightened symptoms of anxiety and depression. This psychological component was recently exposed in the responses to the new hyper-realistic ‘Aged’ filter released by TikTok. Responses revealed the psychological consequences which the presence of internalised ageism is already causing in today’s younger generation. In a video with more than 10 million views, influencer Kailey Breyer (@kaileybreyer) posted an openly emotional reaction, captioning the video “accepting this will be my reality one day and I am going to love her just as much”. Although this response conveys an overall healthy attitude, implied is the internalised ageist assumption that she will be less worthy of her own love (or that it will be harder for her to … this love) when she no longer has her youthful appearance. In this we see the aesthetic basis on which society today assigns worth, a major component of ageism in Gen Z. In the comments section, this internalised link between age, beauty, and worth was all the more apparent with one user’s response, “why to does everyone look so good with this filter and I look about 100”, receiving 45.1K likes, revealing that the value associated with beauty plays a major part in ageist attitudes of today’s society.

So, how does this link to the skincare industry?

The market for skincare is a massive one, estimated to be worth just over £2 million in the UK in December 2021. The number of celebrity skincare routines on VOGUE’s ‘Beauty Secrets’ YouTube series is enough to show the popularity of this aspect of the beauty industry. So, why this obsession with skincare? On the one hand it makes sense: as the biggest organ on our body, we should be mindful of our skin’s health. We should avoid sun damage, cleanse our faces, and consider it in our food and lifestyle choices … but at the end of the day this is about health, not about looks. Why, then, are these products so insistently promoted solely on an aesthetic basis?

Again, we come back to our society’s ideology which equates youth and beauty. What is so revealing in this is how much of this marketing is disproportionally directed towards women over men. It is not only in skincare that youth is equated with female beauty, and beauty in turn is equated with desirability, success, and even value. This is, and has often been, the narrative of the media towards women.

Take the obsession with celebrity skincare: Jennifer Anniston has been praised time and time again for having “cracked the beauty code” with her seemingly ageless face. Articles speculate over her “secret” and interviewers constantly quiz her for her methods, so that we ourselves can emulate this feat of avoiding ageing. However, after years of pinning it on a healthy diet and lifestyle (arguably one of the ultimate skincare practices there is), Aniston admitted to beginning to use collagen supplements, having since become the face of “Vital Proteins” (a UK supplement brand). At a certain age even the most healthy and youthful of skin, no matter what the skincare routine, will begin to show signs of ageing; it’s only natural. However, this media narrative of celebrity culture says otherwise. The use of Anniston’s youthful appearance as a marketing tool for these supplements reveals the aesthetic basis on which many such skincare products are marketed, and their rise in sales reveals the role which celebrity culture plays in promoting these ideals. In and of themselves, there is nothing wrong with supplements, however, a few years later, breaking her “no-tox” policy, Aniston openly admitted to having botox to preserve her youthful looks.

The point of this example is not to judge or analyse Jennifer Anniston’s personal skincare choices. However, her journey is quite revealing of the aesthetic basis of many ‘skincare’ practices, and how, with this mentality, it is so easy to slip into much more invasive methods, ones which, contrary to caring for the skin, actively harm it. Using Botox as a method of maintaining a youthful look is far from ‘care’, and yet Anniston receives considerable praise and admiration for her ‘achievement’. But what makes this an achievement? Is it something about the seeming impossibility of avoiding ageing which makes this such a commendable, even supernatural, feat? It is not the methods of skincare or measure of health which are used to measure this ‘success’, but rather the end product of a youthful face. This sends the message: the goal is beauty, it doesn’t matter how you get there, but you should aim to remain beautiful. Again, this forms part of the media narrative which prioritises women’s beauty over their health, and, with beauty so frequently equated with youth, this feeds into ageism in many beauty markets, especially skincare.

It’s time to look at our own skincare routines. What methods are we using? A moisturiser enriched with vitamin E, a vitamin C serum, or even a retinol is pretty harmless. However, with the focus on visual results, rather than health, we can quickly find ourselves gradually reaching for more drastic measures to “fix” our skin. It can be a slippery slope from simple moisturiser to collagen supplements, to the more invasive methods. And, even on the lower-level end, our choices can be affected by this narrative. When we pick up a pore strip to remove those annoying blackheads in a bid to achieve that flawless poreless skin which only babies really have, do we stop to consider the damage the adhesive causes to our natural skin barrier?

And, if we stop for a moment and consider the dynamics of consumerism, with supply being based on demand, aren’t these the very products which ‘we’ (the market) demands? We read the promises of bright, dewy, perfectly textured skin; browse through a thousand before-and-after pictures; and proceed to buy the retinols, the vitamin c serums, the very same ‘wrinkle-correction’ suncream that we turn around and condemn for ‘ageism’. Does our own internalised ageism play a part here? So, next time we reach for a new skincare product, we should consider: are we buying this to care for our skin, or to achieve the impossible feat of defying ageing which the media pushes as ‘beauty’?