This week, as I was wracking my brain for my weekly topic, I happened across a video by Brett Cooper of the Daily Wire about the nearly all-consuming preoccupation with anti-aging consumerism…in younger and younger people. Brett’s addressed this many times before. Apparently, 10-year-olds are now obsessed with skin care routines, buying up rather expensive anti-aging cream with the same fervor yesteryears children snapped up bubble gum and baseball cards. That just makes me profoundly sad for a lot of reasons.
The catalyst for the most recent video was a photo a gal posted on Instagram or someplace, showing her completely bare face with no cosmetic procedures, fillers, permanent makeup, etc… She got dragged by the young things for looking her age. A lot of girls even younger than her expressed their deep fear of looking like her. The kicker in all this is that, she is an undeniably beautiful young lady, without any procedures or makeup, even with a few wrinkles here and there. She looks way better than me. (Of course, I’m also ten years older! I mean that her face is more symmetrical, and her features are just nicer than mine.)
Add to that, the fact that more and more young women are getting all kinds of work done on their faces. Cosmetic surgeries, procedures, and treatments used to be the domain of fabulously wealthy celebrities. Apparently, it’s a lot more obtainable for the average girl. And when I say girl, I do mean girl. Teenagers are now getting these procedures with the approval and encouragement of their parents.
Gosh.
Here’s the video if you’d like to take a gander. (Brett is 22, and I think the way she gets all worked up and passionate about her topic in videos is rather cute.)
My Generation is Rejecting "Natural Beauty"
I’m not sure that it’s merely her generation that is rejected natural beauty. We’ve been, as with most cultural decline, heading down a slow slide into neuroticism on that front for a really long time. When a society loses its hold on values like prizing what is true, beautiful, and good, it always finds something lesser and more frivolous to cling to. Perpetual youth and sexiness is the new replacement for the true, the beautiful and the good I guess.
And once again, I sigh in relief for what I have which saves me from all of this: I have the love of God, Himself. It reaches me and pulls me outside of the prison of myself so that I can breath the clean, strong air of reality.
It was this which helped me decide long ago that I would never resort to heroic, and or expensive measures, to retain my youthful looks. I simply can’t justify that. When my hair began graying a full decade ago, I just decided I wasn’t going to be a slave to a bottle of hair dye. I had other stuff I wanted to do with my life. Listening to Brett’s reporting on the issue reminded me of something I wrote shortly after my first few gray hairs sprouted. I called it, The Gray Hair Stays, first published at Conciliar Post in 2013. I thought you might like to read it, too.
The Gray Hair Stays
It was early 2013, after a particularly stressful year, that I was at a friend’s house passing the time of day. As I got ready to leave, my friend looked strangely at the side of my head and then swooped in closer. “Amanda! You have a gray hair!” To my chagrin, I realized she was right. At the time, I was a mere twenty-seven years old—in my opinion, far too young for gray hairs. Since then, there have sprung up three or four silver threads on each temple and a couple on the top. At first, I shrugged them off and stopped thinking about them. But every time I fixed my hair and the tell-tale silver caught the light, I’d squirm inwardly. Pull them out. Leave them in. Pull them out. Leave them in. What would it be? Usually my vanity won, and out they came. But I always felt somewhat guilty about that.
You see, a few years ago, I wrote a script for a movie that celebrated the beauty of old age. All my life, I’ve cringed at the wrinkle cream commercials on TV. I’ve blushed for the celebrities clinging so tenaciously to their fading youth, that they are willing to undergo expensive surgeries and painful recoveries to keep its façade, and I’ve applauded those who’ve accepted age with grace. But here I was, searching through a thick head of brown hair for a few gray culprits with all the zeal of a Spanish inquisitor. Honestly, why was I so anxious to get rid of those gray hairs? Hypocrisy? Maybe.
Lest anyone chide me for being too hard on myself by pointing out that nowhere in the whole of Scripture is there any prohibition against plucking gray hairs or dying one’s hair to cover up the gray, there’s no need. I’m aware of that. My point is not to guilt trip those of you who do one or both of the above. My goal is to encourage you, to remind you that it’s really okay to look old.
You need that reminder because everywhere you’re told that it is almost your duty to preserve your youthful looks at all costs. At the very least, you owe it to yourself so you can be happy. The effects of old age—loss of sex appeal, memory loss, aches, loss of mobility and independence, but mostly loss of sex appeal–should be pushed back to the latest possible date. Why? We don’t know. Just because. Apparently, you can enjoy life more when you’re young and beautiful and sexy, and enjoying life is all that matters.
But I have a thing or two to say about that. God never requires us to look young. Regardless of what the culture may say about the merits of youth, God will never lay that burden on you. He says it’s okay to look your age.
“The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.” (Proverbs 20:29) I love this passage. It harkens to Ecclesiastes, pointing out that there is a time for everything. Youth is not better than age, and age is not particularly better than youth. There is a time to be young and there is a time to be old, and there’s that time in between when we’re all getting old. There is a glory in youth, but there’s something quite special about age. The wording is perfect. Youth gets glory, but age gets beauty. But it goes even deeper than that. Otherwise, we might think God simply has a preference for old people or the color gray and leave it at that.
I believe it has more to do with what those gray hairs represent. Aged men have generally acquired more wisdom than young bucks. For most of the elderly, those hairs turned gray during great trials that God caused them to walk through and taught them magnificent lessons about Himself. Gray hairs and wrinkles represent the wisdom gathered through a lifetime of trials, joy, happiness and sorrow that lead a deeper understanding of who God is and what He requires of us. And God always holds wisdom in higher favor than physical appearance. He makes that plain in this challenge, “The hoary (gray) head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.” (Proverbs 16:31) The great qualifier is in the last phrase. Not every gray head is a crown of glory. Not every old person is beautiful. But every gray-headed man or woman who walks in God’s ways is a beautiful sight without exception.
As I look at my own gray hairs, feeling quite tempted to pull them out, I put the tweezers down and stop to think. Do I really want to submit myself to a cultural expectation with which God is completely unconcerned? Am I trying to avoid a blessing that God wants to give? My gray hairs appeared after a lot of stress, after a year that God taught me hard but important lessons. As gray hairs multiply and the smile lines and even frown lines deepen, I can either try my best to erase them, the evidences of my past, or I can embrace them as blessings and reminders. They are my history, like it or not. They will remind me to keep my feet in the ways of righteousness, so that when my crown of gray hair is full, it will be a crown of glory and not of shame.
So, here is my conclusion: You may do what you like. But as for me, the gray hair stays. And that’s final.
And Today?
I still haven’t touched a bottle of hair dye. My skincare routine is almost nonexistent. I have a couple of bottles of some serum I picked up at TJMaxx because it was in a pretty bottle. I think I may use it once or twice a month, if that? When I do wear makeup which is certainly not every day, I wash it off. Otherwise, I don’t wash my face. (Ya’ll, my skin is way too dry for that nonsense.) I don’t use sunscreen and I love being out in the sun. I do everything wrong. I will be 39 in two months and I have wrinkles now…smile lines, concentration lines, and surprise lines! Incidentally, my hair is not much grayer than when I first noticed gray hairs a decade ago, which I wasn’t expecting. So, would I do anything different? Nah. Here is the face of a 39-year-old woman with no camera filters, no make up, and no work done on my face. I’m good with it.
That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…
P.S. Who wants to read a pre-published copy of 27? Upgrade your subscription from free to paid and I’ll send you a preview copy of the manuscript with a pre-paid return label. When you send it back, you can send it with your thoughts and impressions about the story. Last week, a paid subscriber bought ANOTHER subscription with a different email address. Wendell Hyink, you are a blessing. Thank you, so much, for your support.
Great article. I cringe when I see young girls. Young. 10, 11, 12 years old talking about/wearing makeup. I wonder what happened to playing outside climbing trees and riding bikes. Do they even know how to play jacks? Can they double dutch at jump rope? There is such pressure on them to fit in and be grown up and my heart hurts for them.
If is the important word in Proverbs 16:31. As my hair becomes grayer and grayer, I hope I will become more and more righteous. Brethren,I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14. I've talked to gray headed people who are living very unrighteous lives ,but harken back to the day they "got saved" and so they're okay with God. The word IF is the qualifier ,in Proverbs 16:31, for the hoary head to be a crown of glory.