Something is happening. Scrolling through my feed, I see 20-year-old women voluntarily fast-forwarding 50 years with the aging filter. I hear dermatologists publicly admitting there are downsides to fillers, while celebrities are being more open about dissolving — or regretting — their previous tweakments. As the leader of a beauty publication, I am always thinking about how we’re balancing the conversation around aging, wellness, and representation. In one vein, we want our readers to be the most informed about every treatment, product, or surgery in which they may be interested. On the other hand, do you really need another eye cream meant to “erase” fine lines and wrinkles? Sometimes it feels we’re being pulled in two conflicting, very different directions; you’ll be “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
The results from this year's Mirror/Mirror: AARP Survey of Women’s Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media™ affirm that I’m not alone in noticing this shift in attitudes toward beauty treatments and standards. For one thing, women of all ages who responded to the survey said they’re less likely to dress up or wear a full face of makeup to work after the pandemic. I’m one of them: When I come into the Allure offices, I’m often makeup free. It’s less a rebellion against beauty standards than a time-saving tool. However, the fact that we’ve built an office that allows me to show up, dark circles and all, to do this work is representative of the shift happening in our society.
I recognize that young women feel more pressure to live up to the look seen on social media. I feel it, too. What we are trying to do at Allure is show more images that represent the full spectrum of beauty, at every age. When you see a person with gray hair, age spots, and glorious wrinkles in Allure, you start to think, maybe feeling my best and showing up as my authentic self is the key to loving how I look. — Jessica Cruel, editor in chief of Allure
We are living at a confusing point in beauty history. Learning to love yourself no matter your age, race, or weight remains a widely lauded mission… as long as the way you look naturally adheres to a certain set of beauty standards. At the same time, chastising videos that “reveal” when someone has spent a substantial amount of time, money, or effort into fitting those standards continue to hit our social feeds daily. (Nevermind how often the people getting these treatments assert that what they choose to do to their face or body should be their choice alone.) On top of that, too, filters across social media have become so common that some of us might have forgotten what we look like without them. These contradictions — making sure you adhere to beauty standards, but not by trying to — that disproportionately affect women are so pervasive that they were the underlying theme of one of the biggest movies of the year.
Regardless of where you stand on any of these individual matters, this experience can be stressful to navigate — and a recent survey from AARP shows that women of all ages are feeling the pressure to adhere to certain beauty standards, especially when it comes to reducing signs of aging. While the survey found that some working women are less likely to dress up for work, many of these same women also feel compelled to use any combination of things like skin care, fillers or injectables, makeup, and filters to be seen as beautiful. This pressure, as the survey respondents see it, peaks at age 29.
If we can take any comfort from the results of this survey, it’s that we’re not alone in feeling completely overwhelmed. Eighty percent of women ages 18 and over reported feeling some pressure to meet a certain set of standards; and women across age groups agreed on many of the sources of this pressure. Filters, for instance, were generally seen as unhelpful for our self-esteem: An average of 60% of survey respondents who are aware of filters view its use as distorting, or otherwise negative. In recognizing that we’re all facing similar pressures, it should be easier to support and be compassionate toward one another, hopefully alleviating some of that pressure.
Another comfort: At least as far as the survey respondents are concerned, it does indeed seem to get better. Younger women were nearly twice as likely to say they feel a significant amount of pressure than women 50 and over. In fact, 51% of respondents aged 50 and over said they feel little to no pressure to meet certain beauty standards. Even younger respondents were already starting to feel a confidence boost: Seventy-seven percent of women 18 and over said they were able to be more of their authentic self, compared to five to 10 years ago.
So, how do we make the most of this inherent mutual understanding? For starters, we can begin by shifting the focus away from advertisements as a leading source of beauty standards — and instead leaning in to find inspiration and support within our social circles. While 74% of women surveyed agree that there has been a trend toward more diversity in ads from large brands, they also emphasize the word “trend.” Three in four women don’t actually buy that these companies have a true commitment to inclusion, but rather, that they’re well aware of how it may look to consumers if they don’t appear to care. Perhaps because of this, the women surveyed said they get most of their beauty inspiration from their (likely more authentic) friends and social circles, instead.
And if your own social circle seems to spend more time collectively discussing when to start getting injectables or whether foundation actually highlights wrinkles more than concealing them, you might consider reaching out to older acquaintances. They might not have figured it all out yet, but in dealing with these types of pressures for years, they likely picked up some helpful tips along the way.
Mirror/Mirror: AARP Survey of Women’s Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media™. Data were collected from 11/02/22–11/30/22 among 7,368 women age 18+ and were weighted by age, region, education and race/ethnicity to reflect U.S. women ages 18+.
