IS 'ANTI-AGEING' HATE SPEECH?

How do you feel about the term ‘anti-ageing’ in beauty marketing?

Does it make you feel angry? Does it make you feel old? Does it make you feel… hopeful? Or perhaps, like writer, Heidi Clements, interviewed by my friend Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style fame, you think it sounds like hate speech.

I love her defiance, and I especially love the confidence of women who have a no-nonsense approach to getting older. I think ‘hate speech’ is an accusation too far, though I understand why she feels that way. Given how different ageing looks now, we should no longer talk about such a natural human process as something to fight.

Anti-ageing doesn’t offend me, but it does sound outdated. A throwback to a time when women were expected to remain perpetually thirty or quietly fade away. But times have changed and so have we. We’re not anti-ageing. We’re pro-ageing as fuck! We just want to look as good as possible, while doing it.

In our forties and fifties and beyond we are loving the absolute shit out of life, even though it can feel hard and unforgiving. We are empowered with knowledge, we are smart, fierce and fabulous, we have a sisterhood of friends who understand and support us. We are not shuffling off into invisibility without a fight; we are ageing, rageing and being cool as heck in the process. Getting older looks different now. It looks like being vibrant and vital right up until the pointy end of life, if you can get away with it.

Crows against feet erasure. Drawing by Cecily.

What is the alternative to ageing, if you’re “anti” it? If you’re not ageing, you’re not living. I know my ‘anti-ageing’ moisturiser doesn’t want me dead or else I would have to stop buying it, and that’s terrible for repeat sales. Neither does it want me to feel bad about myself if I have lines on my face without injectable intervention, at 45.

It's no secret brands often use hyperbole in their marketing to lure consumers to spend in a hyper-saturated market. And yes, I am easily led. I love to try things. A pop-up ad told me that if I paid $40 for a three- month trial, I could feed a virtual raccoon every time I ate a meal and the raccoon would help me lose weight. I paid the money. I fed the racoon a few times. The raccoon seemed happy. I got bored. To my abject disappointment, the raccoon did not help me at all. Who knew that in addition to feeding the raccoon I had to eat less and exercise more? But I digress.

Not only did I not lose weight but now the raccoon is hungry, depressed and disappointed in me.

Imagine if beauty brands tapped into these empowered times. If instead of positioning ageing as decline, it was viewed as evolution.

Instead of anti-ageing, try:

Pro-ageing.

Fine-line friendly.

Longevity boosting.

Barrier strengthening.

Glow enhancing.

Radiance restoring.

Advanced skin support.

Wrinkle-worthy!

What if the message was:

“You’re ageing? We love that for you!”

“Got wrinkles? Glorious!”

“Let’s soften and hydrate them, nourish your skin barrier, bring out your natural radiance and show your complexion in its best possible light.”

Hello, gorgeous! Drawing by Cecily.

A reality check for all of us standing in front of jam-packed beauty shelves, as a trillion creams and serums purr at us with marketing claims and jostle for our dollars:

No serum can truly 'defy gravity' unless you are applying it in space. No moisturiser can turn back the clock, unless it is also a time machine. No product is 'botox in a bottle' unless it is botox in a needle. No topical product can significantly affect sagginess or laxity unless it’s a surgical facelift. No serum can freeze your face unless your face can turn to ice, in which case stay away from central heating.

Ingredients like peptides and retinoids and vitamin C can do amazing things for our skin, but even they cannot perform actual miracles. You will not wake up looking 20 years younger.

What a good product can do is: Boost hydration. Speed up cell turnover. Increase collagen. Strengthen and protect the skin barrier. Improve brightness. Make lines look softer. Make your skin feel juicy and soft and cared for. Make you feel good. Help you love yourself just that little bit more when you’re feeling all smooth and moisturised and in your lane.

Ageing is a privilege denied to many. And yes, anti-ageing is an all-encompassing term that’s been around for decades. Sure it taps into our anxiety about fading youth. But it feels like high time to embrace a new, more empowered way of thinking. One where ageing and our changing skin is seen as a positive, not something to fight or erase. And if some brands can't quite crack how to talk about that yet, maybe we can.

Got any suggestions? Would love to hear your thoughts!