Accept Aging and Resist the Media
While surfing the Internet recently, I came across a side column commercial advertising Dove’s newest “Tria Beauty At-Home Age-Defying Laser Kit.” Below there was an image of a small machine that was promised to zap, fraction and stretch your skin in a non-ablative, FDA-approved method. I absolutely could not believe my eyes. It seems in the last decade that more than ever, the most popular tagline on the cosmetics market is “Age-defying.” Are you more prone to cancers and long-term skin damage if you use these tools? Sure! Then what is the drive? Women have to get it out of their heads that only young skin can be beautiful skin, that only hair with color is attractive hair.
"I think this is becoming a real trend as people begin to realize the blunt unimportance of maintaining youthful features."
Finally, someone began to tackle it. In 2007 a book came out called “Going Gray-How to Embrace Your Authentic Self With Grace and Style” by the renowned Fast Company columnist and novelist Anne Kreamer. The book was first introduced to me by the wonderful Maria Heeter of the Class of 2018, who as I recall exclaimed to me one day, “After reading it I wanted to dye my hair gray!” It is one of the only volumes to criticize the widespread practice of women preserving their physical youth with artificial means. Kreamer’s message is one that is overseen when we talk about self-love and self-respect; her message is that our goal should not be to defy age, it should be to accept it.
Why is it so easy not to? It’s because of companies like Dove, L’Oreal, Pantene, Revlon, and Covergirl. On the front of their boxes we see 20-something-year-old woman displaying to its much older consumers what this magical tool inside will make you look like if you buy it. We are easily fooled into thinking we are the minority, that everyone is like that girl on the box, that we are 99% imperfect and the only way to fix our imperfections is by using products like the almost $500 “Tria Beauty At-Home Age-Defying Laser Kit”. People make money off of our insecurities every day. Companies benefit with millions of dollars every time we look at ourselves in the mirror and are dissatisfied.
Thankfully, I do think Kreamer’s word is getting across to the masses. Last week I saw a young girl at the Exeter Train Station with her hair intentionally died a silky gray. It made me smile to see that. I think this is becoming a real trend as people begin to realize the blunt unimportance of maintaining youthful features.
When I look at my mother, I see the exemplification of beauty. She has both the attitude and comeliness of the woman I want to become as I grow older. With gray curls interweaving the blonde ones proudly and publicly, I want to have the same type of security with my body and age as she does. I don’t know about you, Dove, but I think the color gray is beautiful and foxy and glistens like the stars. I think that wrinkles show wisdom and scars show perseverance. And I definitely think that I am sick of the public media trying to take our self-respect away from us.