Welcome to WonderCafe Mae. I am quite sure you have opened the door to an interesting discussion.

Seems to me that the manufacturers of these products have found their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The dumbest thing was last week when I saw an ad for an "anti-aging" "wrinkle-erasing" skin product on YTV!

Hi Mae, welcome!

I noticed you're 18.

The reality is with all of us "baby boomers" out there that thought we would
"die before we grow old" (that's from an old Who song) we are realizing that even our cocky attitudes will not save us from Father Time.

We're a lucrative market right now to tap into.

I think the guy who started Facebook found his pot of gold! He was probly at a business networking party and the thought dawned on him like a bolt of lightning, to sell networking!

Anyway, I don't think wanting and trying to maintain one's youth some is a bad thing. We bud, we bloom, then eventually the petals fall off and we get hindered with tonnes of health issues. Wouldn't it be better to stay young? Sure it would. But we are on an aging path, and there is no fountain of youth as of yet, so we need to embrace and enjoy every age of life. Each age has it's benefits.

"Know yourself at every age" ~Cocteau Twins

The really sad part of it is that wrinkle remover cremes (which is what anti-aging cremes are) are a multi-billion dollar industry employing hundreds, if not thousands of individual brands or products.

And not one of them work.... at all.

Think about it. If not a single car ever manufactured would move an inch, would car companies survive?

If no bank could ever return you money once deposited, would they be allowed to exist?

If no house painter ever applied so much as a drop of paint, would they be able to feed their families?

Yet here we are with billions of dollars spent yearly on a product that does not... which can not.... work at all....

And more of them all the time.

Really... are we all THAT stupid?

If you're "anti-aging", does that mean you're "pro-suicide"?

Its not so much the idea of staying young that im curious about but the psychology of why it has become common place for people to somehow think that aging is not beautiful….even to go as far as saying you should change the way you appear, not to feel better about yourself, but so you fit into the image of what should make you feel better about yourself. It just doesn’t make sense to me-  when did a model who has likely had dozens of people around them to perfect their image become more beautiful then our own mom's smile lines?

--and thanks for the welcome! and i do agree with you "Witch" most of what they are selling doesnt even work and so you have to wonder how warped their veiw of themself is when they look in the mirror before and after they have used the product :/

While not a wrinkle remover cream, there are anti-aging creams that work quite well.  They are typically referred to as sunscreen 

Mmmm, they don't work too well in Oz.

I use sunscreen every day (including Winter) and I have more lines than a road map.

To paraphrase Dame Edna, "We don't buy anti-aging cream by the tube or jar - in Oz we buy it by the drum."

Also, like most fair-skinned women of a certain age, I have to go to the doctors once a year to have my sunspots frozen off before they turn cancerous.

It's definately the downside of living in a sunburnt country.

Pilgrim:  Yeah?  Us Kiwis don't let melanomas bother us.  Our bodies turn them into brain cells... that's why we're so much cleverer than all you dingo-brains across the Tassie.

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"Aging" used to be a social privilege.

Now it's a marketing "concept".

Witch, yeah, those folks are buying magic aren't they. They believe it will work, so it sells. People want to believe that, and corporations know that they are selling a fantasy, whether it's wrinkle cream, or a sports car. It's what people think of it that counts.

I agree, sunscreen, eating right, not smoking, getting exersize, and not stressing much, those things will keep you looking young for longer. Positive thinking! And those are the beautiful smile lines of our mothers.

Ahh but the good ones aren't typically marketed as anti-aging cremes. They're typically marketed as sunscreens. Go figure lol

And hair colouring products have shown a dramatic increase in use in the last generation.

Imagine the money and time spent on these.

I'm one of just a handful of women I know who proudly let their silver hair shine.

(I'm 51 btw)

It looks great, Tabitha!  (saw your pic).  I'm "natural" too, but it's mainly because I can be bothered or afford the constant upkeep and touchups. 

I have a friend "of a certain age" who out of habit just kept colouring her hair the same dark brown as it was when she was younger.  It looked harsh and unnatural, IMO, but she was very striking in her appearance and took wonderful care of herself.  She said if she didn' t, her hair would be pure white, but she found keeping on top of roots really annoying.  I asked her why she just didn't let it grow out and she decided to see what that was like. 

She has never gone back to colouring her hair.  She looks stunning.

There's a white haired woman in the Sears catalogue that looks stunning.

Maybe the whole beauty thing youre refering to Mae is the sex appeal thing. Fresh, young, healthy, fertile mating material. Advertizing companies have latched on to sex sells so much that we have come to believe them. I think life is about more than being fertile.

Back to hair colour...I've been noticing a lot of coloured hair lately. It could be partly that we don't feel old enough to be grey yet, with living longer and being healthy and active longer. In the 1800's if you were grey, you were probably old, not so now! Also, why not! Colour is only colour. Whatever makes you feel good.

I don't need to colour my hair.... I'm already harsh and unnatural.

I think you jive with nature pretty well witch. ; ) And ain't nature also harsh?

I am fortunate in not having to really worry about whether or not to colour my hair if I don't want to as I inherited some long life of hair colour gene from my mom.  The hair goes from blonde to brown to a darker tawnybrown as we get older.  At 76 my mom's hair is finally giving up the ghost and fading to a mouse brown.

But my skin is annoying.  I have always had dry skin and so have always used moisturizer as such it was a simple thing to move to face creams and I definitely notice a difference between the creams.  Fortunately, I am not allergic and can use some the more intense ones that seem to glue your face together at the same time as adding a moisturizer on top.  Of course, it doesn't cure wrinkles but they are correct to say it stops the appearance of wrinkles.

Now, if I could just have my metabolism back.  I am really struggling with my new physiology . . trying to understand what my body needs as opposed to my emotions.

Y'know, I'm not denigrating "harsh and unatural" as an intentional, proudly-owned, identity. 

Informed choice is what matters here!

jlin said " Fortunately, I am not allergic and can use some the more intense ones that seem to glue your face together at the same time as adding a moisturizer on top.  Of course, it doesn't cure wrinkles but they are correct to say it stops the appearance of wrinkles."

That cream sounds like magic.  Can you share a brand name?  As an older person there are times when I'd like to stop the appearnce of my wrinkles.