How to Age Gracefully

If antiques and fine wine improve with age, why shouldn't women do the same? Never before has it been possible for women to stay looking younger longer. No longer are most of us worn out and exhausted by childbirth and housework. We know much today about correct nutrition and physical fitness, and the vast cosmetic industry is geared to our needs, constantly perfecting new products for preserving and maintaining the elasticity and suppleness of our skins. Although we cannot stop the inevitable ageing process, it is now possible to slow it down considerably.

Today there is a tremendous difference between biological and chronological age. Two women of identical years can look totally different ages depending on the way they have maintained themselves. I have seen thirty-five year olds who look twenty-five, and thirty-five year olds who look forty-five. A lot of it has to do with the luck of the draw as far as parents go, of course: if Mum or Dad look good at sixty, the chances are you will too. But if your parents are fit and vigorous it is highly probable that, by accident or design, they have formed good health habits throughout their lifetime.

Apart from the anti-aging cosmetic or makeup products, as well as having a healthy diet and lifestyle, the dress style is important too. Basic dress sense, acquired in the teens and twenties, will blossom with experience. Particularly in terms of hair, make-up and clothes, less is more and simplicity is all. There are few things more pitiful than a woman in her fifties emulating a twenty year old clothes, attitude and make-up style. On the other hand a woman of that age who is beautifully groomed and dressed with taste, who has taken good care of herself, can be truly beautiful.

Each age has its own advantages. Wisdom, tolerance and humor are gained as one progresses through life, in exchange for some loss of freshness and innocence. Of course many of us dread old age because we feel death cannot then be too far away; but we are programmed to die from the day we are born, just as we are programmed to age. If our attitudes are right, our life should only become richer as time passes.