by Dee Putri

A few days ago, I watched a documentary about wars (which was depressing) that showed an interview with an old lady who had experienced war. The story itself was traumatizing for me–I always  get super depressed whenever I read or watch something about war. The second thing that I noticed about her was her wrinkles. She had lots of wrinkles in her face, and her body was sort of wrinkled. I think this is a normal thing that happens when you’re old. Especially when you’re over 90 years old, you’ll be super wrinkly because that is how it is to be old. But we don’t see wrinkles–or age–much in magazines or other media.

At a certain point, it seems like people, women especially, prefer to look younger than their real age. Women go to great lengths to look younger. According to this study, the total market for antiaging products and services was valued at $249.3 billion in 2012. This is expected to increase to nearly $261.9 billion by the end of 2013 and $345.8 billion in 2018, a growth rate of 5.7% between 2013 and 2018. Sometimes the desire for looking younger even includes surgery! According to statistics released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 14.6 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures, including both minimally-invasive and surgical, were performed in the United States in 2012, up 5 percent since 2011. In addition, 5.6 million reconstructive plastic surgery procedures were performed last year, up 1 percent. Less extreme measures include chemicals like Botox, using everything with anti-aging label, or wearing makeup. With makeup, people tend to cover their complexion, including their age.

Maybe you’ve seen The 2014 Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio photographed by Chuck Close. This portfolio features raw polaroid portraits of celebrities, with the celebs themselves responsible for their own look–there was be no professional styling or hair or makeup. Are you surprised? To see their real faces. Some images weren’t strange– Robert De Niro looked the way he always does—but some were. Seeing Julia Roberts surprised me. It felt like I was seeing  her present face for the first time. This is because our beauty standard includes looking young, at least for women. Usually women are made up to look much younger then they are, but men aren’t. And even these “no-makeup” photos aren’t totally—people have said Oprah looks like she’s wearing eye make up, Cate’s wearing some BB cream or tinted moisturizer, and Scarlett’s wearing BB cream and lip balm. Not totally makeup free, but I think it is quite raw, if you compare it with professional make up.

Being scared of being old is not a new thing for us. As children, Disney movies like Snow White and Tangled have shown us old women who want to be younger, even if their actual age is more than a hundred years. This makes us girls sometimes feel uneasy about being old, wanting to just stop time when we look the most beautiful. Maybe Disney doesn’t realize that it’s possible for protagonists to be kind and nice without an old crone villain who makes young women suffer?

But I’m happy that the beauty industry is starting to use older model for their campaigns. 64-year-old actress Jessica Lange is the new face of Marc Jacob’s beauty line, while Charlotte Rampling, 68, will front a new campaign from NARS. I think we should start accepting that wrinkles and other things are  just part of our natural process, and getting old is totally normal. We can be beautiful even if we have wrinkles. I think the most important thing is our spirit. If we have high spirits, I think it doesn’t matter whether we’re old or young. Keep fighting!