Natural or not?

I saw some images of Andie MacDowell today where she looks fabulous, and there I was thinking: how amazing it was that a woman of 55 can look great and confident without having had surgery. I just never put her in that category - then I googled it and found, oh, she has! This got me thinking, who in the over 40's celebrity world hasn't had surgery?! I so wanted to discover a bank of women who had aged gracefully and who looked natural and pretty but without intervention. Julianne Moore? Kate Winslet? Julia Roberts? I hope that these women really do stick to their word and don't stray into the plastic arena. There is nothing sadder than seeing that puffed up look of the 'before' and 'after' pictures.

I used to have a very different attitude to plastic surgery. When I was a little younger I used to think I would have all sorts done to preserve youthfulness. Then I had children and figured I would wait and see what I was left with, after the ravages of pregnancy and birth. A few years passed and in my mid-thirties I started to age. I am 39 now. In the interim time I started to experience pain in my face and jaw, which has been largely unexplained, but that I have truly struggled with. Many dental procedures have ensued and with that, a certain fear has developed of worsening the pain and of disrupting the very fine balance of health and well being. I am now staggered by the lackadaisical manner in which my contemporaries have procedures that are not absolutely necessary. I think differently if someone has a long-running psychological attachment with changing a certain part of their body, but for those who simply don't want to age, I wonder how they could reconcile their circumstances if they were left with a bad result or residual pain. How would I explain that to my daughter for example, who I want to embrace natural beauty? Even too much make up on her young face sends chills, let alone going under the knife or being injected. But nevertheless, the fade of youth is so...sad...isn't it?

The fact remains that I hate what ageing does and I wish there was a way to side-step it. I am interested in women who seem to defy it with good genes and skincare regimes. Hell, I even started making my own skincare oils in an attempt to utilise natural beauty. And it's working :-) I think a lot about why women start to look old and feel it has much to do with so many factors, from how they dress to their haircut, their attitude to their general health. All I can wish for is to stay young in my mind (after all, everyone says when they are 70 that they feel like they are 30) and fit in my body. I know that over time it will get increasingly difficult; I am not 40 yet, and there will be many women my age who look better and somehow manage to keep hold of that elixir of youth. I wish there were more who did so naturally.

I so don't want to succumb to that stage I see so many women go through where they cease to look any age - they could be anything from 45 to 75; the only indicator is their degree of frailty, not their appearance. Grey hair, beige clothes, drabness and invisibility. This scares me! I quite like Bobbi Brown's philosophy and have read her books 'Living Beauty' and 'Pretty Powerful' which really did help me get some perspective on getting older. You've got to keep on trying and stay healthy, yes?!

via here