Let's retire the phrase anti-aging

If you’ve listened to my podcast, you’ll know that I’m fascinated by words and phrasing. I think it’s incredibly interesting how certain words, tone and phrasing can completely change sentences to mean entirely different things.

It’s also been proven before that words have power. Have you seen the studies that suggest if you speak kind words to your plants, they’ll grow faster? (And that if you speak negative words to them, they’ll start to die).

First of all - stop there. That should be a bigger deal, right?

I’ve also always found the idea of the placebo effect fascinating. If we think we’re taking a pill to heal us…it actually can? The brain is wonderful, right?

This is all to say - words are powerful things. I want to talk about the power (and danger) of words when it comes to skincare and the beauty industry.

How many times do you see ads for “anti-aging” products?

We know what these products will do - help with sun damage, wrinkles, and help your skin’s elasticity. All of these are “problems” that come with time over age.

But the thing is…Father Time comes for us all.

How can we be promoting beauty products by condemning a natural process that happens to all of us?

All of these anti-aging marketing campaigns and phrases subtly instill fear in us - and convey that we should resent an inevitable process that happens to us (and that we have no control over).

And when you demonize something that you cannot control, it creates feelings of shame, anxiety and insecurity. These magazines, beauty products and influencers create negative feelings in you so you’ll be scared enough to buy beauty products and try to reverse something that is irreversible.

It’s a no-win situation for anyone, and I can’t help but wonder: is the success of the beauty industry worth the fear, shame and anxiety they create in so many people?

I’m not asking that rhetorically - because when any industry thrives, people usually benefit. You get a chance to be creative with makeup, those who want to start their own makeup line can use phrases like “anti-aging” to increase sales, discoveries about ingredients that do help with wrinkles can make us feel better…but is the tradeoff of demonizing age worth it?

It’s uplifting to know that others are wondering about this as well. Allure Magazine, as of August 2017 decided they would no longer use the term “anti-aging” which literally has me wanting to subscribe to their magazine for that feature alone. Check out the article linked above where they talk about their reasoning behind it - I especially love this quote:

Changing the way we think about aging starts with changing the way we talk about aging.

It’s funny that aging is the one concept that seems to be both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You ask your friends for recommendations for music, for restaurants, for clothes that they buy…but you don’t ask them for recommendations to slow aging.

So why is it then that companies are offering products to us based on that feature?

For pet peeves, we talk about people who chew with their mouth open, walk slowly or sneeze loudly. But we don’t ever talk about people who are old, or how we’re annoyed and bothered by aging.

So why then, do companies talk about aging as a bothersome thing you should avoid doing? An action you should take steps against.

As it goes for all things in life, sometimes worrying can be beneficial (to a degree). If you worry about school, you usually study harder. If you worry about your health, you tend to eat healthier. If you worry about your job, you work harder. I mean these are all generalizations - but let’s just use these as examples for now.

But worrying about age? Nothing can be done from it.

You can wear sunscreen to protect your skin. Eat healthy to live longer. But aging backwards or stopping time are impossibilities - as well as the only true “solution” for the “problem” of aging. All impossible.

People also use “age” as a negative verb.

Don’t smoke, it will age you. Hmmm, that dress doesn’t look quite right, it ages you.

To look or be aged is something that we say in a negative light instead of a positive one. And it’s funny that age is so demonized and underrepresented.

Even in the “anti-aging” campaigns, beauty companies show ads that feature 18 year old models. They can’t even show a middle-aged woman in the ad for the middle-aged woman.

Now look, my solution for retiring the phrase “anti-aging” isn’t to act like age doesn’t exist.

But I think that companies should focus on the problem they want their product to solve, and that problem is not age. Maybe it’s a problem caused by age, but age itself is not the problem…if that makes sense?

I think instead of saying a product is “anti-aging” companies should focus on the problem: A cream that reduces wrinkles, brightens skin, or evens out your complexion. Because those are the ‘flaws’ that these products fix.

To date, I don’t think any cream touting “anti-aging properties” has ever actually reverse-aged someone.

And I know that this might seem a bit nit-picky or dramatic for just one beauty campaign, but the truth of it is, there are so many beauty campaigns out there doing this, and it’s easy for them to get in your head and mess with your self-worth.

Remember when I wrote in the beginning about nice words helping plants to grow? If negative words harm the plants…imagine what it’s like to walk into a store and see “anti-aging” thrown at you from hundreds of different labels.

So, I rest my case. Let’s retire the phrase anti-aging and haha I just realized…using the word “retire” for this is kind of on the nose, right?

My parents have a plaque in their room that they’ve had since they were married and it reads

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be

Wrinkles and sun damage are going to come with age, but so will piles of happy memories, life experiences and stories that we can pass down to our children and friends. Like Allure said, to change the way we think about aging we need to change the way we talk about it.

I can be anti-wrinkle and still be pro-age, and I’d just like to see some of that same ideology in the beauty companies and skincare ads that flood our feeds on the daily.

Let me know your thoughts on this issue! Are you also put off by the phrase anti-aging, or is it something you never really noticed before?

Until the next one,
S