Be honest. How old are you. How old do you look?

[Anonymous]

I’m 33 and I look my age I think. I take good care of my body and skin but don’t try to style myself with clothes or makeup to look younger.

Personally, I don’t think looking younger necessarily means looking better. I know women who look young for their age that are far less attractive then their peers who look their age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 51, Asian, size 0-2 petite.

Not sure how old I look but my co-workers, who are the same age as I am often tell me "this is before your time."
Then also, not sure if I should take this as a compliment or an insult... someone asked me if I was expecting! I guess my empire waist dress that day made my food baby bulge out. So I said, oh no, I am DONE with that! (and I did not say that my kids are in college!)

I am starting to feel my age in my face though. Could use some fillers on my genetic eye bags, which have been nicely concealed by masks.
I do color my hair, although, knock on wood, thankful that I am not half as gray as my mom was at this age.

DH is Asian American and we've often observed a combo of non-racist unfamiliarity with the way other races age + infantilization of people of Asian descent. Asian Americans can usually tell how old he is (although he is darker than most, so does look younger even "objectively") but almost everyone else, especially white people, underestimate his age to an almost laughable degree. He was still being *consistently* carded (by people who were not required to card everyone) through his early 40s, and is still carded in some of those cases now, at over 50.

A cousin of his got something like you describe, PP. She was on a flight and the attendant scolded her for not finishing her peas-- "When I was your age, my parents made me finish my vegetables." Cousin said, "Lady, you're not my age YET." Cousin was in her thirties.

[Anonymous]

Immediate 44-year-old PP here. My mom is 68 and could pass for 55. My grandma is 94 and could pass for 78. It's a combination of great genes and really taking care of my skin since my teens (sunscreen and staying out of the sun and moisturizer) and staying in shape. I really do have to work at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone on dcum looks more than a decade younger, duh

True but that's because we are mostly upper income folks who either stay at home or who have desk jobs. Access to good health care, and not doing back breaking work for decades, make all the difference in the world.

Unless you are brown, black or had plastic surgery you don’t look 10 years younger no matter how much money you have. You may look good and healthy but not younger.

That is just not true.

[Anonymous]

It depends on a lot of things, especially genes. I don’t look great, I am overweight, but I’m in my early 50s and have no wrinkles, forehead furrows, smile lines, crepey skin, turkey neck, or death hands. I have the beginnings of some marionette lines. My hair has a few greys in it. This is following the trajectory of my mother and grandmother. My mother is 82 and kind of looks early 70s - and she doesn’t even have extra weight on her to fill out the skin. No one had any work done, or a particularly aggressive skincare regime. It’s just luck of the genetic lottery.

[Anonymous]

I'm 43 and look not a day over 42.

[Anonymous]

Is there anyone else that is just a terrible guesser of age? So many comments say things like “I’m 45 but look 40”. I would never notice that this person looks younger for their age. People age so differently and have different tells. You’d have to be 40 and look, like, 16 for me to register that you look young for your age.

[Anonymous]

41 here and look early to mid 30s day to day. I still have a baby face, but my hair, clothes and makeup keep me from looking any younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know less than 5 women who really, truly look shockingly younger than they are and all of them are childless and live stress-free lives. I think this is a function of getting enough sleep plus hairstyle and clothes. I know my hair gives away my age (35 and still doing the Zooey Deschanel hair) but I love it and can't bring myself to try the parted down the middle thing now.

I agree with that but genetics also play a role. Having a slim toned body makes you look youthful while having one of the thick to fat body types makes you look like you might have already given birth to 5 kids and are a mature older woman.

I’m very slim, 39, and being skinny probably makes me look older. The past year has not been kind and I probably look early 40s. Who knows though? How you look at a certain age is individual and it’s hard to make these categorizations.

I didn't say very slim I said slim and toned. Being thick or fat makes you look matronly no matter how sexy you may think it is.

Not inevitably. For some folks and some figures (and triple chins), sure. But a fuller face is an asset as you get older. Because of the volume loss that comes for us all, lots of my plus-sized friends in their 40s end up with faces that fit a slimmer person in their 20s.

[Anonymous]

42. I think I look 42.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone on dcum looks more than a decade younger, duh

+1
So delusional.

You have heard of selection bias, haven't you? And confirmation bias?

No doubt some are delusional. Others just remember the comments from people who really do think they look younger (no one says, "Wow, you're 45? You look 45!" So maybe they look 10 years younger to some people, but "objectively" they look an average of only 2 or 3 years younger... but how would they know?

And of course, the main reason you see so many people on DCUM who look much younger, or whose kids have 4.0s-- it's those people who love to answer these questions.

Nah they are delusional. Selection bias? Don’t think so. I post and I am not even a woman.

Oh, brother.

"X can't possibly be true on average, because I'm Y and I do it, too. My anecdote trumps a well-proven tenet of cognitive science! Also, I can totally tell who is posting what on a busy, purely anonymous message board! Check and mate!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's rather pointless replying to this thread, right? If you say you look 10+ years younger, you're delusional (despite your day of o day experiences). If you say you look your age, it's to be expected.

I think the bar has been raised over the past few decades. People nowadays wear sunscreen daily, don't smoke, rarely drink, exercise many times a week, eat veg, have skincare routines, use Botox and filler. There's a lot more knowledge on how to preserve one's looks easily available now. Weren't the Golden Girls in their late 40s and early 50s on that show? Most women in that age range look nothing like that.

A lot of how we see other women's age is the clothing/hairstyle. I am into vintage stuff a bit, and I have a photo of myself wearing the whole 1960s thing - the cocoon coat, the pillbox hat, the hairstyle and makeup. The photo was taken on a vintage train ride, so it's not obvious that it's not a vintage photo. People who don't know me or who don't recognize it's me in that getup estimate my age as anything from 40-60s, based on that picture. I am in my mid-40s. Many of those who said 60s told me that when they looked at the picture, they thought of their grandma because this is what they remember her wearing and immediately go grandma =60 something. They don't pay much attention to the wrinkles, the jaw line, etc. OTOH, when I am wearing my regular clothes, people usually guess early to mid-40s, which is pretty much on the mark.

Bottom line, the Golden Girls looked good for their ages, it's just that women don't dress and style their hair like that anymore at that age.

[Anonymous]

PP small framed/52.

Being petite/small-framed/thin reads young. It just does. So does highlighted hair vs gray. I’ll add styling can “read” young, too. I don’t try to dress like a teenager but I don’t dress like an old lady, either. I’m very careful with fit and fashion and accessories and never want to look dowdy.

I work in MS and I’m significantly smaller than many of my female students. So, there’s that. If I were heavier to overweight, certainly I’d appear older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone on dcum looks more than a decade younger, duh

True but that's because we are mostly upper income folks who either stay at home or who have desk jobs. Access to good health care, and not doing back breaking work for decades, make all the difference in the world.

Unless you are brown, black or had plastic surgery you don’t look 10 years younger no matter how much money you have. You may look good and healthy but not younger.

It's less common among white people, but not unheard-of. My dad spends exactly $0 on his beauty routine. He is a giant nerd who barely even thinks about his clothing. He uses Head & Shoulders and Old Spice and I don't even know if he uses a moisturizer, but he has always looked 20-25% younger than he is. He just has really good genes, including olive, very oily skin, hair that is still 90% brown at age 73, etc. People all thought he was in his 30s when he was in his 50s, and now think he is in his 50s. He is aging like his father, who died at 88 with a full head of barely salt-and-pepper hair and a face that looked 20 years younger. I remember being out for my grandfather's 80th birthday, and as we left the restaurant, a man in his 50s stopped him and said, "Larlo Larlostein??" The man had been a young neighbor of his and hadn't seen him in 45-50 years, but he easily recognized him.

I'm a mixed bag. I got a lot of my dad's/grandfather's "good" genes, so until I was ~40, many people really did think I was significantly younger. When I was planning my 20th HS reunion and mentioned it, more than a few people seemed genuinely shocked. They'd assumed I was talking about my 10-year reunion.

But around 35-40, my mom's family's sagging jowl genes started to kick in. So while my 43-year-old skin itself is fairly bright, not crepey or too wrinkly (and I barely have a few grey hairs at my temples), my face and neck are heading south. :/ It's subtle, even according to my dermatologist, but I definitely notice it.

That said, my brother (who got my mom's family's fairer, dryer skin) is 10 years younger than I am and strangers now assume we are about the same age, or that he is older. I'd say the average person would guess I am MAYBE 4-5 years younger than I am, but no younger than that, at least not on average.

OTOH, I posted upthread about my darker-skinned Asian American husband. He's almost a decade older than I am, so when we got together a million years ago, it was obvious he was older, even when people didn't think he looked his age, per se. But when I was about 30 and he was about 40, I realized people we met now assumed we were around the same age. I'd say a combination of his aging more slowly as well as my aging more quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's rather pointless replying to this thread, right? If you say you look 10+ years younger, you're delusional (despite your day of o day experiences). If you say you look your age, it's to be expected.

I think the bar has been raised over the past few decades. People nowadays wear sunscreen daily, don't smoke, rarely drink, exercise many times a week, eat veg, have skincare routines, use Botox and filler. There's a lot more knowledge on how to preserve one's looks easily available now. Weren't the Golden Girls in their late 40s and early 50s on that show? Most women in that age range look nothing like that.

A lot of how we see other women's age is the clothing/hairstyle. I am into vintage stuff a bit, and I have a photo of myself wearing the whole 1960s thing - the cocoon coat, the pillbox hat, the hairstyle and makeup. The photo was taken on a vintage train ride, so it's not obvious that it's not a vintage photo. People who don't know me or who don't recognize it's me in that getup estimate my age as anything from 40-60s, based on that picture. I am in my mid-40s. Many of those who said 60s told me that when they looked at the picture, they thought of their grandma because this is what they remember her wearing and immediately go grandma =60 something. They don't pay much attention to the wrinkles, the jaw line, etc. OTOH, when I am wearing my regular clothes, people usually guess early to mid-40s, which is pretty much on the mark.

Bottom line, the Golden Girls looked good for their ages, it's just that women don't dress and style their hair like that anymore at that age.

I agree with this and have always said so re: high school yearbook photos of kids who "look like they're in their 30s." No, it's just the mullets or beehives.

But I think it's a combo. It's not just the styles, you can see their teeth are imperfect and so on-- they haven't gotten Botox and whatnot.