All my life, I’ve seen commercials for anti-aging creams on TV, ads to cover the greys in your roots as I scroll through Facebook or Instagram on my phone, and heard dozens of celebrities advocate for botox and other injections in media. People say that youth is the societal standard for beauty and that the billion-dollar industry relies on your insecurities about growing older to make their next paycheck. I have a hard time buying it – metaphorically and otherwise.

All my life, I have seen beautiful people. I have watched them age and I have never once thought that their beauty had lessened as they did. Wrinkles and grey hairs don’t make a person any less gorgeous, and I’m not saying that as a half-baked measure to make you feel good. I don’t want to write it in a pretty font and place it on an image of a river for you to stumble upon for a fraction of a second as you scroll onto your next post. I’m saying it because it is true. I’ve never considered otherwise.

They say that beauty is only skin deep, but let’s take a second to look at the word “beautiful.” ‘Beautiful’ is intended to encompass more than what is at surface level, it is meant to describe something as a whole. A beautiful face can cover up an ugly soul, but because the face itself doesn’t purely reflect the entire definition of beautiful, it never takes long to see through the face and uncover the soul. People say that a beautiful person can become ugly really quick because of what might be discovered underneath, and thus, beauty is not skin deep.

That being said, I want to present the argument that a person can become more beautiful as they age. A young face is a clean slate; an airbrushed image without a blemish or a flaw. A young face is pretty, but it doesn’t tell enough of a story to be beautiful. The lines you get on your face as you age are determined by how often you smile, or you frown. They grow more pronounced and deepen the more you express how you feel and who you are. Your eyes hold on tight to your memory and your irises are shelves that put each hardship and joy, each defeat and each accomplishment on display as little sparkling ornaments that reflect your spirit. The longer you live, the more you experience. The more you experience, the more ornaments you have to place on your shelves. As you grow old, your face tells a story, and if the story is good, then you can be more beautiful at eighty than you were at eighteen.

Still, we fall for the gimmicks of anti-aging creams and root cover-ups. So, is that a product of societal standards? Well, perhaps it plays a role overall, but I can say confidently that it has not been the case for me. All of what I’ve said so far is what I’ve always believed, and what I’ve always seen. My locker in Jr. High did not have a picture of a celebrity I found attractive but if it did, I would have not chosen Aaron Carter or Jesse McCartney as many others might have. Instead, my locker would likely have a picture of Hugh Laurie, Johnny Depp, or Robert Downey Jr. Of course, this wouldn’t be under the pretense of a “crush” like young girls today might have on Harry Styles or Justin Bieber, but those were the faces then, that I found the most beautiful. I found beauty in the stories their lines had to tell.

In the last few years, grey hairs have begun to pepper my scalp and the lines on my forehead don’t disappear anymore when I relax my brows. When I catch my reflection in the mirror, these new developments make me uncomfortable. Lately, I have been relentlessly pondering why. I have never, ever, ever seen these things as flaws or unattractive as anyone else, and I have firmly believed these things are not diminishing in any way, so why does my stomach curdle when I see them on myself?

Through my process of discovery, I can still say confidently that I don’t believe this is the product of societal standard. Instead, what I believe is happening is this:
I have known my face now for twenty-six years. Of course, my face has changed through the years. I have lost my baby fat and I can see a slight shadow of a cheek bone, but the changes that have happened throughout the years have been subtle and gradual. Besides the odd pimple, (or rather, collection of seemingly unending zits) my face has been airbrushed and blemish free. I have had twenty-six years to know my face and so now, I have an expectation of what I should see when I gaze into a mirror. Lately, my expectation has been disappointing me. In my minds eye, I don’t have the greys nor the lines because I never have before. My reflection in the mirror now is nearly foreign to me, and that’s what I think is causing the disturbance. I suspect that it will take a great long while for me to grow accustomed to the changes, and that as every line deepens, and as new lines form, it will take me longer yet. That’s what I believe the true root to the discomfort of our aging faces is; to preserve the face we’ve grown to know. It’s very difficult to accept yourself if you don’t recognize who you see. I’m certain that those around me still see me with the same level of beauty as they always have, but they aren’t surprised by my new reflection in the same way I am. I have an inclination that those around me are going through the same exact thing. I reckon that those decades over me may still struggle with expecting to see the face they’ve recognized as their own the most.

All my life, I’ve seen commercials for anti-aging creams and ads for root touch-ups and even now as they begin to apply to me, I won’t buy it. Wrinkles and grey hairs don’t make a person any less gorgeous, and that includes myself. I just need to figure out how to recognize my reflection when I gaze into the mirror.