Efforts to hide and prevent ageing are far from being a modern obsession. In Ancient Egypt cosmetics were applied to the face and eyes, and cosmetic implements, particularly eye-makeup palettes, have been discovered in the earliest graves. Honey as well as various herbs and plants were used in an attempt to devise anti-ageing treatments. The aloe plant was commonly used as an anti-wrinkle treatment and is still with us today. Cleopatra is known to have used lactic acid in order to peel her skin, believing it made her appear more beautiful. The arid desert climate of Egypt led to the widespread use of body oils as moisturisers. It is believed that all classes of Egyptian society were concerned with their appearance, both men and women.
This pattern is repeated throughout the ancient world. As now, the focus was on the youthful beauty of women rather than men. The Roman poet Ovid despaired of time’s encroachments: ‘The years will wear these charming features; this forehead, time withered, will be crossed with wrinkles; this beauty will become the prey of the pitiless old age which is creeping up silently step by step.’ Other writers saw the comedy as well as the pathos of the situation. ‘The Man and His Two Mistresses’ is one of Aesop’s Fables, written around 600 BC:
A man of middle age, whose hair was turning grey, had two mistresses, an old woman and a young one. The elder of the two didn’t like having a lover who looked so much younger than herself; so, whenever he came to see her, she used to pull the dark hairs out of his head to make him look old. The younger, on the other hand, didn’t like him to look so much older than herself, and took every opportunity of pulling out the grey hairs, to make him look young. Between them, they left not a hair in his head, and he became perfectly bald.
In a recent survey many men and women said that they are, will be, or were, at their physical peak not during their youth but during their early middle years around the age of 40. Those aged 65 and over said 46 was their personal best age. But in terms of appearance, youth remains the golden age. Marie Helvin, at 54 still a supermodel, said: ‘Please shoot me if I’m doing this in my 80s. Anyway, one day I won’t be able to. My mother always said that Japanese women look youthful for years and then one morning they wake up and they’ve aged like 100 years. And she’s right. It happened to her when she was 79.’
Celebrities and many others have fallen prey to the cloned-youth look. The American anti-ageing magazine New Beauty offers articles on how to get flawless feet, and lists the top ten wrinkle reducers. However, the treatment needed to achieve this youth has, it is claimed, made many women look like waxwork escapees from Madame Tussaud’s. Many have had their faces injected with a filler to remove the creases while others have plastic surgery. In a survey 20 per cent of men said they thought that cosmetic surgery for their wives could save their marriage; it seems no one asked the women whether they would like the pot bellies of their husbands reduced.
Currently the global anti-ageing market for cosmetic products and treatment is estimated to be worth approximately $57 billion, a figure that is expected to grow at breakneck speed in coming years. In the UK cosmetic surgery has tripled in the last five years. Britons are spending nearly £500 million a year on cosmetic procedures, said Which? magazine, more than any other European country. A total of some £673 million a year is spent on skin care, and these figures are dwarfed by figures from the US. Of course not all this money is spent by the old, but anti-ageing products are the largest growing sector. An article in Time magazine in early 2009 introduced the concept of ‘amortality’ when referring to the current attempts to avoid ageing and achieve a leap in life expectancy. Age-appropriate behaviour, it claimed, will be relegated to the past, like black-and-white television. Amortals do not dread extinction—they deny it.
Surveys exploring attitudes towards ageing, beauty and cosmetic surgery can yield varying results. In one survey of some 2,000 Americans aged over 18, as well as 500 who have had cosmetic surgery, almost all of those interviewed were satisfied with the way they look for their age, and over half felt that inner beauty is more important than physical appearance—this was particularly true for the old. Just one in three said physical beauty counts most. More than half believed that men and women age gracefully, and only a quarter of women felt that maintaining an attractive physical appearance was important for them. Most of the women were satisfied with their appearance. After 45, women were more interested in looking good for their age than in trying to look a different age. Agony Aunt Virginia Ironside has commented, ‘I want to look good at my age, but I also want to look old enough for people to open heavy doors for me.’ She also very much appreciates being offered a seat on a crowded bus.
But in another survey, almost three quarters of women cited body shape as a ‘major concern’. Meanwhile, men are also taking more time over their appearance. About 20 per cent said they would consider getting cosmetic surgery in the future, while about 22 per cent were unsure if they would. Those under the age of 40 were nearly twice as likely to consider having a procedure in the future. A study by Which? magazine found that Botox treatments are seen as a desirable Christmas present by 50 per cent of people aged between 16 and 24, and 45 per cent of those aged 55 to 64. A survey of schoolchildren found that 18 per cent of all boys and 25 per cent of all girls declined to imagine any form of enhancement because they saw it as unnatural or simply unnecessary. One girl commented, ‘I wouldn’t want an upgrade because I wouldn’t want to be different. I like being who I am.’
Despite people’s professed opinions, however, cosmetic surgery in general has been growing in popularity in Britain, with a threefold increase in the first decade of the twenty-first century. According to figures released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, only 10,700 procedures were performed in 2003, but by 2009, this figure had risen to 36,482. One of the biggest growth areas was in people in middle or late middle age. These figures do not include non-surgical interventions like the use of Botox, which has been increasing even more rapidly. The most common procedures were breast enlargement, liposuction, and eyelid and facial surgery.
In the US, over 10 million surgical and non-surgical procedures were performed in 2008, costing over $11.8 billion. Men had over 800,000 cosmetic procedures. Strikingly, people aged between 54 and 61 had about a quarter of these procedures, and people over 65 much fewer. Over half were for breast augmentation and fat reduction. Plastic surgery of the face can help you feel better, but does not affect what is going on inside the body. Anti-ageing surgery procedures are widely advertised on the internet with the injunction to ‘Get expert free advice’. These include Eye Bag Removal, which can restore a youthful look through the removal of fat and excess skin from both sets of eyelids, and the Brow Lift is a procedure that concentrates on restoration in the upper part of the face, correcting drooping eyebrows and loose skin in that area. Facelift surgery challenges the most visible signs of the ageing process: loose facial and neck skin is removed to produce a smoother, fresher appearance. The operation can take between two and three hours and it is recommended that patients spend at least one night in the cosmetic surgery clinic after the procedure. Liposuction entails the removal of fatty deposits from any part of the body, a process usually taking no more than one and a half hours to complete. The recovery time involved is minimal, with most patients getting on with their lives again within a few days.