Eva here…I had a delightful encounter that I thought was perfect for the blog, because it says so much about inner beauty and the myths of aging. We spend so much time dreading age and the effects of aging that we forget that age can bring with it so much beauty, wisdom, poise, knowledge, class, and charm. No one dresses with more panache than a woman who came of age in the time when ladies wore minks, pearls and hats to the opera or theatre. No one is more courtly, polite and winning that an older man who grew up in a period when men still held doors for women, called everyone “Ma’am,” and knew that a wink and a smile was infinitely more powerful than a lewd comment. Nothing against feminism or modern culture, but sometimes, I wish we could find a balance between those old ways and today’s society.
A week or so ago, I was at lunch and saw a very handsome, dapper older gentleman. I sat down and we started speaking, and I found out that not only was he 83, but a former mayor of Miami Beach. We chatted for a while and he was very charming and debonaire, and then a beautifully dressed and made-up older woman came along, politely interrupted us, and he excused himself and left with her. Later, I ran into this woman, and out of curiosity (people are my profession, after all), I started talking with her. Not only did I find out that this simply lovely elderly lady was 103 years old (!), but I learned that she lives at The Flamingo, an apartment complex for young singles!
A while later I ran into my older gentleman friend and teased him about abandoning me for this astonishing older woman. He smiled and said, “Sorry, I like older women.” Talk about charming. He was old enough to be my father and she to be my grandmother, yet they were just about the most attractive, fetching people in the restaurant. Age had nothing to do with it, and neither did a sense of curiosity that they were up and around at advanced ages. They were turned out in a way that showed they cared about how they looked and what others thought of them. They were witty, had savoir faire, and a sense of humor about themselves. Talk about inner beauty.
It was wonderful to see that not only could old age (and even extreme old age) come complete with a sense of fun, attractiveness and even playful sexiness, but that a woman of 103 could have the moxie to live in a building with a bunch of twentysomethings and feel right at home. If Debi or I are lucky enough to live that long, I want to be just like the lovely lady who stole the ex-mayor’s heart right out from under me.
We’ve said all along that aging wasn’t strictly a biological issue. Now there’s some proof that we’re right. A new study (read the story about it here) by Dr. Bahman Guyuron, chairman of the department of plastic surgery at the University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University, has revealed that identical twins, who are genetically programmed to age in the same way, can actually show different facial signs of aging depending on their lifestyles and life experiences. We find this especially interesting because it suggests that your choices on how to view the world and your relationships with others can have a tangible effect on your Outer Beauty, and indeed can affect the entire Beauty-Brain Loop.
The researchers recruited nearly 200 sets of identical female twins who were attending an annual twin festival in the aptly-named Twinsburg, Ohio. They collected photos of each set of twins and asked an independent panel to review each pair and assess whether one twin looked older than another.
They found several factors influenced facial aging, including sun exposure and smoking. Based on the assessment, 10 years of smoking added about 2.5 additional years of aging to a twin’s face, compared to a twin who didn’t smoke. Sun exposure, particularly among those who spent a lot of time outside playing golf or tennis, also increased the appearance of aging.
Stress also appeared to be a factor in aging. Divorced twins appeared, on average, at least two years older than a twin who was married or widowed.
The study also found that users of antidepressants such as Prozac also appeared older, raising speculation that perhaps the chemical components of the drugs affected facial muscles or tissues in some way. Interestingly, weight loss was both white and black hat in terms of aging. Women who lost weight before age 40 looked younger, but women who were heavier after 40 actually appeared more youthful than their slimmer siblings, suggesting that fat loss may somehow affect collagen and the skin’s natural moisture content.
What’s really interesting about this is that it puts responsibility for how your face looks as you age squarely on the shoulders of nurture, not nature. Sure, genetics play a role in everything from your odds of developing skin cancer to your propensity for developing bags under your eyes. But overall, the choices you make for your diet, your recreation, your relationships and your attitude toward living are what really determine how well you age and how your face shows the years.
It makes sense that stress is a major factor: the release of powerful stress hormones like cortisol can cause the body to release oils, provoke breakouts and damage skin in the long-term. And there’s nothing worse than smoking, which produces an oxidative reaction that damages the skin and collagen at the cellular level. What’s positive about this news is that it means you can control, to a remarkable extent, how your face ages with the choices you make. It means that your Inner Beauty—your self-esteem, love and ability to see beauty in others—directly impacts your exterior.
So to give yourself the best odds of aging gracefully, stick to the basics first. Eat well. Exercise. Protect yourself from the sun. Don’t smoke. Breathe. Live with joy and find healthy ways to manage stress. Find a doctor you trust and maintain your overall health. Anything else you do on top of those choices, from spending on cosmetics and skin care products to choosing dermatological procedures, is only going to be effective if you’ve given yourself a great foundation for lifelong beauty.
Haven’t we been over this before? We mean the whole battle over smoking being cool. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when we beauty docs were either little girls or not even twinkles in our parents’ eyes, smoking in movies and TV was all the rage. If you were a femme fatale, detective or tough guy, you had to be wreathed in cigarette smoke. But by the 1990s society and public health efforts had effectively countered the image of smoking as the essence of coolness, in part with smoking bans and advertising like the famous faux-Marlboro billboards where one cowboy says to another, “Bob, I’ve got cancer.” Essentially, we thought we had this smoking thing licked, but apparently—and disturbingly—we were wrong.
Now comes a study from the University of Staffordshire in the UK showing that Brits age 17-24 worry about the effects of smoking on their appearance but most don’t intend to consider quitting until they see visible signs of damage. Now, smoking has always been more of an issue in Europe, where it’s widespread, but this is a very dangerous attitude, especially if it’s reflected here in the U.S. First of all, damage to skin and teeth occurs at the microscopic level long before it’s visible to the naked eye. Second, and perhaps more important, smoking may be the single most damaging thing you can do to your general health, and as we’ve said before, health is beautiful. Health is a stage of the Beauty-Brain Loop, so if you negatively impact your health, you’re going to harm all the other aspects of your beauty.
Public officials in the UK have said that they intend to use the results of the study to create a series of new public service advertisements highlighting the ways in which smoking can damage the looks of appearance-conscious young people. Well done, but why wait? Let’s bring the news to the people right now! These are some of the major ways in which cigarette smoking damages your skin, hair, teeth, and overall exterior:
Smoking releases free radicals in your lungs, producing an inflammation response throughout the body. This affects the skin by accelerating cellular breakdown, producing wrinkles and the gray pallor commonly known as “smoker’s face.”
It reduces the level of oxygen in your blood and thus depletes the collagen in your skin. This can cause sagging and a premature aging.
The reduced circulation caused by smoking also causes the skin to become thinner, making fine lines and wrinkles more noticeable.
It yellows teeth and causes bad breath.
Smoking is also highly addicting because the nicotine and other addictive chemicals go right to the lungs and bloodstream, so it’s very easy to get hooked. Young smokers are very vulnerable to this rapid physiological addiction to tobacco.
We could go on, but why? It’s common knowledge that smoking is terrible for your body, inside and out. We’re not sure that any public service ads are going to dissuade youth, who always think they’re immortal, but it’s worth a try. If you think about the effect that smoking has on Inner Beauty (making you feel bad about being a smoker and not being able to quit) and on Environment (repelling other people who hate the smoke and ruining the area around you), there may be nothing more toxic to the Beauty-Brain Loop. We’ll keep an eye out for similar research in the U.S….and hope for better results.
