16 Secrets Of Over-40 Women Who Don’t Look A Day Over 39
Nothing insufferable. We swear.
by The Candidly Team
We once genuinely read the following anti-aging advice in a magazine (yes, this was two decades ago when we actually read things like this in magazines).
“If you want to appear younger, try gaining weight in your face."
Now, we don’t really have time to unpack this. But we will just say that anti-aging advice has gotten a little more … attainable over the years. Are we allowed to call it better?
Take away all the fillers and injections and the lasers and the lifts, and just look at all the DIY stuff. The science-backed stuff. It’s not half bad, you guys.
Now we’re not out here claiming that we can reverse engineer aging or look 23 when we’re 43, but we are saying there is a pathway to look and feel our personal best as we get older, and it isn’t all doom and gloom.
It also isn’t either/or. Meaning we can accept aging AND take anti-aging actions. We can love ourselves AND work hard to be the healthiest, glowiest version of that self. We can accept exactly where we are right now AND buy serums to make our skin time travel.
We can do it all. More specifically these 16 things.
Some are long-haul. Some take 11 seconds. And unlike magically deciding exactly where fat will be stored on our bodies so as to youthify our faces, all of them are physically doable.
1. They don’t smoke and they limit alcohol.
We know, we knoooow. We’re starting with something big and obvious. But we recently learned about the details of what exactly these substances do to our appearance, and it was like reading a rebuttal to every promise on every skincare label we’ve ever poured our money into.
One study linked smoking to:
forehead lines
crow’s feet
glabellar lines (aka our 11s)
under-eye puffiness
tear-trough hollowing (deep, dark circles under your eyes)
nasolabial folds (smile lines)
oral commissures (those corner spots where your lips meet just itching to sag)
perioral lines (deep lines round the mouth and lips)
reduced lip fullness
And it linked heavy alcohol use (more than 8 drinks a week) to:
increased upper facial lines
under-eye puffiness
oral commissures
midface volume loss
visible blood vessels on the cheeks
2. They know all about Vitamin C.
There are 3 skincare ingredients that have hard proof of having real anti-aging effects. Vitamin C is one of them. There are studies showing it improves the appearance of wrinkles and redness, but there’s also just our own results we get to witness in a mirror when we start with a good vitamin C serum, more specifically THIS vitamin C serum.
3. They use more than a moisturizer on their skin.
As we get older, our glands produce less oil, our skin cells take longer to turn over, and the effects of years of sun damage get their day in the s… ok, nevermind. But you get the point. We end up with a dryer, deader surface of skin, which means we can opt for more hardcore, rich, lathery moisturizers (GO HERE for holy grail. Go HERE for an affordable but amazing option).
We can also start adding in serums (see above) and line-minimizing oils like THIS one, which has been nothing short of a miracle in our own over-40 routine.
4. They avoid powder blush and foundation.
Too much makeup is already an instant way to age ourselves. And powder formulas are much, much more “makeuppy.” They also make us look dryer, cakier, and settle into the finest of lines on our face, undoing most of our anti-aging skincare in one fell swoop.
But, of course, we still want smooth, even skin, which is why use THIS, the world’s best tinted moisturizer followed by THIS, the nicest cream blush for mature skin. The finish is remarkable. For our exact routine, we do THIS, which gives us our best “no-makeup makeup” look of our lives.
5. They’re careful about the sun but still look sun-kissed.
Read any article about aging and it will depress you to learn all the ways the sun can turn us into spotted, raisined versions of ourselves. We won’t horrify you with the details. You know the drill. Wear SPF. Wear hats. Set an alarm that goes off should your car steer itself within 50-feet of a tanning bed.
But…
That doesn’t mean you have to give up on a warm, healthy glow. Self-tanners have gotten worlds better, more even, less streaky. And most importantly, bronzers are a mid-life lady’s best friend. THIS particular one is life-changing.
6. They protect their smile.
We know there are women out there so committed to their 30-year-old faces that they’re actively trying not to smile too much. And while this might preserve the job security of their children’s future therapists, we prefer to do other things to preserve our lower faces.
One is take excellent care of our teeth, because yellow teeth and unhealthy gums are enormously aging in and of themselves. Hygiene is everything, but if you want to try a whitening kit, HERE’s one we love.
The other is to pay special attention to our lips. Keep them hydrated. Keep them protected from the sun. And finally, keep them looking a little fuller, using THIS.
7. They define their brows
Keeping a fuller, darker brow is like sprinkling a little bit of fairy dust on our faces that immediately takes years off. We use THIS at home and even tried THIS and THIS. All of it works beautifully. All of it.
And look, we see no harm in trying this viral trick … But if you do, please let us know it works.
8. They don’t do trends, but they also don’t dress to date themselves.
What are we even talking about here? Basically, if you look at one thing women over 40 we admire have in common in terms of style, it’s that they’re not desperately clinging to whatever fleeting trend we’ll be rolling our eyes at in a year. But they also don’t succumb to dumb rules about what we can and can’t wear when we turn 40. There’s a balance that comes with picking clothes that are supremely flattering, classically chic, and really comfortable. And if you’re annoyed by our non-specificity, this is actually most of what we write about HERE.
9. They wear the correct underwear.
Now we’re getting specific! What is it about bra and underwear lines that make us look 97? We, of course, dream of a drawer full of smooth, seamless underthings, but comfort is also a non-negotiable. All of this is to say, we created a little shoppable GUIDE of very good things. To make life easier, we hope.
10. They pay a whole new kind of attention to haircare.
When we get into peri-menopause and menopause, we get to look forward to dryer, brittler, weaker hair. And less of it. Oh joy!
We went deep into what to do about all this HERE. But one critical thing is to put 22x more focus on hydration. Use richer conditioners that you leave in for longer, and rinse them out with cold water (it really does do something). And try out a hair mask like THIS heaven-sent one.
Also sidenote, keep wearing your hair in a ponytail. It’s practically a facelift. And you look f—kin’ adorable in it.
11. They strength train.
The obvious bit is that it helps maintain muscle which also helps maintain your metabolism, etc., etc. But did you know a recent study showed that weight-training helps your skin stay looking younger? The study found that while both aerobic exercise and strength-training “altered gene expression and improved the underlying health of facial skin cells and tissue … resistance workouts produced benefits beyond those of the endurance exercise,” according to the Washington Post.
12. They stand up straight.
Our moms were right about this one. There are TONS of good exercises out there to help us strengthen the muscles that make perfect posture possible, but we watched this video, and it actually really, really helped us on a day-to-day basis:
13. They keep their diets rich in these 3 things.
We’ll just tell you what they are: fiber, healthy fats, and antioxidant rich fruits and veg. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
14. And avoid eating this one thing.
You guessed it. It’s sugar. Sugar actually makes our skin lose both collagen and elasticity. The American Heart Association suggests not having more than 24g of added sugar a day (about 6 teaspoons).
15. They keep up on these two bedroom activities.
What else do you do in bed besides sleep and have sex? I mean apart from binge watching and doom-scrolling. But let’s focus on the first two.
We know getting good, quality sleep matters to our health in a massive way. It also gives our skin the time it needs to repair itself. If you need a bare minimum number, 7 hours is a good one to keep in mind, according to sources like the National Institute On Aging.
But enough about sleep. There are also actual studies showing people who had sex about 3 times a week looked 7-12 years younger than those who had less sex. Just putting it out there.
16. They realize it’s never too late to stop stressing.
Nothing is more stress-inducing than telling someone that not stressing will make them live longer and look younger. So we’ll end on a hopeful note.
A recent study showed that stress-induced increases in biological age are reversible. The study was done on mice, but the takeaway is critical to humans. It is never too late to stop sitting idly by and accepting our anxiety as part of the deal. And it’s also not too late to prioritize anything in life that helps us relax, be it sleep, sex, or skincare.
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