Would you come here for a second? A little closer. Okay, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly. Can you see my mustache? No? You're sure? That's probably because I shaved this morning. Not with a real razor; I used one of those little femmy things that looks like an eyeliner pencil, except on one end there's a blade which, if you hold the handle right, slices off hair. Egad, now you know.
If, like me, one of your aspirations is to one day be, by any measure or evaluation, really, really old, you're most likely going to have to deal with more than a mustache. You will probably get a full coat of down on your face, and a long stray hair here and there on your chin. The hair on your head will probably get thin, as will your eyebrows and eyelashes. (Oh, I nearly forgot—your pubic hair, too.) You'll get spots on your hands and bunions on your feet. Your nose and ears may appear to have grown out of proportion to your face. And that expression "long in the tooth" will endearingly apply to you: A receding gum line will make your teeth look bigger.… I can't believe you're still reading this. Okay, as long as you're staying, I'll tell you how you can look beautiful as you age.
Look great at any age! Here are five things they don't tell you about aging—and how to overcome their little ways of ruining your beautiful life.
The Hair on Your Face
Though a significant minority of women of all ages have coarse dark hair growing on their chin and upper lip because of a genetic predisposition, most women who have excess facial hair have an underlying hormonal issue, says Doris J. Day, MD, clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center. As we age, our bodies lose estrogen; testosterone, unopposed, causes us to grow more hair where men have it, on our faces (and to grow less on our heads). If you occasionally have several dark (or white) hairs on your lip or chin, it's fine to whack them off with a razor; plucking isn't the best option, because the force of the pluck can irritate and leave a bump, says Day. Most dermatologists don't recommend shaving for several reasons, among them the fact that the down on your face feels soft because it's been there for a long time; shave it off, and it's going to grow back stiff or coarse (though no thicker than before). Laser hair removal works only in certain situations, says Loretta Ciraldo, MD, clinical professor of dermatology at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. It's not effective on white hair, and if your skin is olive or darker, laser can cause postinflammatory hyperpigmentation, which looks like a dark stain, so it could leave you with something like a mustache even though there's no hair on your lip. Electrolysis—a procedure in which the follicle is destroyed by heat through an electrical current—is a good solution for stray hairs, says Ciraldo, but it's not good for large areas. The prescription cream Vaniqa inhibits the enzyme that hair follicles need to grow. Ciraldo advises applying it twice a day at first; if the hair stops growing within three months, she then suggests application once a day, followed by every other day, to determine the minimum amount needed to prevent recurrence of growth.
Being downier can present an unattractive problem with makeup. "Peach fuzz on the face can 'grab' powder and foundation," says Maria Verel, celebrity makeup artist. There are a couple of tricks to prevent that. Apply foundation the way you apply moisturizer: Rub it in and let it set (or dry), says Verel. Then buff it off with a cloth or a clean, slightly damp sponge. If you also wear powder (or a powder foundation), after application, lightly mist your face with water to settle the powder. You can just let that be, or pat it dry.
Thinning Eyebrows
Are your eyebrows getting patchy? Perhaps you'd like to consider an eyebrow transplant. Or perhaps you wouldn't: In the restoration procedure—which takes two to three hours in a doctor's office—individual hair follicles from the back or side of the head (where they aren't noticeable) are removed and placed into the brow area to re-create whatever density you like, says Washenik. But wait a minute: Why wouldn't the hair grow as long as it would if it were still on your scalp? It does, says Washenik. The transplanted follicles don't know that they've been moved, so you get something like bangs growing from your browbone. To avoid this potentially tragic state of affairs, forget transplants and try an eyebrow pencil or powder. Choose one that's a shade lighter than your haircolor, and with feathery strokes, fill in the patchy areas, says brow expert Sania Vucetaj. Brows grow a little longer as we age; brush them upward and trim.
Your Nose and Ears Seem to Be Growing
Looking in the mirror one morning, I noticed this unpleasant surprise: My ears seemed to be larger than they used to be; not a lot, but definitely bigger. Then I started discreetly examining my friends and other older women. Slightly bigger ears on most of them. Was I imagining it? Evidently not. Though our ears are 90 percent grown by age 6, and our noses are almost fully grown by the time we're teens, both do change shape and appear to enlarge as we age. One theory about the nose is that it has a large number of sebaceous glands, which have a high cell turnover rate and therefore growth potential, says Neil Sadick, MD, clinical professor of dermatology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. But both the ears and nose droop as soft tissue (skin, fat, and muscle) relaxes and structural support changes (bone recedes with time, so there's less foundation to hold the skin and cartilage up), says Alan Matarasso, MD, clinical professor of plastic surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York City. Plus, loss of elasticity and collagen in the skin causes sagging. He's seeing increasing requests for rhinoplasty and earlobe surgery among patients having facelifts. Heavy earrings can stretch the soft tissue of your earlobes; wear light ones. But if you've been hanging major bling from your ears, there's earlobe reduction, an in-office procedure that takes about 15 minutes per ear, requires a local anesthetic, and heals well, says Robert Klausner, MD, medical director at the Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Bonita Springs, Florida. You can't entirely prevent your nose and ears from drooping, but you can minimize it by following Matarasso's advice: Avoid the sun, smoking, and weight fluctuation, and start using prescription-strength skincare products, including retinoids (which help preserve and regenerate collagen), in your 20s.
What Big Teeth You Have!
If you're long in the tooth, it's because your gums are deteriorating and have begun to shrink away from the crown portion of your teeth, exposing some of the root, says New York City dentist Marc Lowenberg. The length of the average front tooth is ten to 12 millimeters; with recession, including root exposure, it can become as long as 15 to 17 millimeters. In the same way that our skin loses collagen fibers, our gum tissue loses mass. The best preventive measure is to keep your gums free of bacteria—by brushing and flossing twice a day—because bacteria cause gum disease, which worsens recession. Also, overly vigorous brushing can scrub away gum tissue, so avoid it.
Your Hands Are Veiny and Spotted
I love old, veiny, spotted hands. There's something beautiful, very wabi-sabi (the Japanese appreciation of transience) about them. Especially with a big, chunky, burnished pink-gold ring or some other imposing adornment, old hands look to me as if they've earned the right to carry heavy, important jewelry. But if you prefer the soft, plump, unmarked hands of youth, use the same antiaging products you use on your face, says Matarasso. That should include a retinoid, an AHA moisturizer, and—this is critical—sunblock. If you haven't been good about sunblock, you can have hyperpigmentation spots lightened with laser; veiny hands can be plumped up with Restylane, collagen, Sculptra, and fat injections. I'd rather use the money I could spend on rejuvenation on a cocktail ring.
