Jezebel: wrinkles

Everybody Panic: President Obama Looks Old

Dodai — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

"President Obama didn't look his age when he took office in January," writes Jane Ridley for the NY Daily News. "Ten months later, nobody would mistake him for a kid." We have a Commander in Chief who ages! The indecency!

Ridley notes that "there are flecks of gray in the mane" and "his face has grown more gaunt."

Two things:
1. Really? because he looks the same to me.
2. Who cares?

As the commenter known as "Railsplitter" writes on the Daily News site:

HA!! Every president has aged within the first year or two in their job! Look at Clinton and Dubya! Both aged like 20 years!!! Its not an easy job haters, and no one seriously expected him to clean up this mess he inherited in 10 months!

When is the sick obsession this society has with youth (or a youthful appearance) going to end? There was a time when politicians would powder their wigs — to look older. With age comes wisdom, experience and maturity. Admirable qualities in a leader. And let's face it: Would you rather he focused on cosmeceuticals? Or Afghanistan?

Ten Months After Inauguration, Stress Is Showing On President Obama's Face [NY Daily News]
Related:Sick & Twisted: "Anti-Aging" & "Cosmeceutical" Ads

Woman Invents Neck Bra, New Wrinkle Worries

Margaret — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

Is your fear of cleavage wrinkles keeping you up at night? La Decollette, a cupless bra that holds the breasts in place while sleeping, promises to help you "emphasize your femininity with a beautiful and smooth neckline." [Daily Express]

Attack Of The Fine Lines And Wrinkles

Sadie — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:40:00 EDT

This weekend, I stayed with a friend - who, despite the mere three-month gap between our birthdays, is unquestionably a grownup. She has a mortgage, and people who answer to her. Most of all, she has anti-aging products.

I can rationalize my arrested financial status, my rental, my inability to drive. But staring at that row of expensive, alpha-hydroxy-boosting bottles, I knew I was in denial. Anti-aging products are scary and overwhelming, their labels full of vaguely-threatening pseudoscience. According to the most extreme dermatologists, we should all start using them at 18. And while generations of women seem to have gotten by perfectly well without a battery of pricey snake-oils, the fear campaign has done its work well: I feel anxious, guilty, terrified - and paralyzed with choice. Even as I know my collagen production is slowing down, my skin losing its youthful elasticity, the lines and wrinkles multiplying, I'm as frozen as I was when a 10th-grade chemistry test was set before me.

New findings suggest that, at the end of the day, we all become our mothers anyway: as in most things biological, you can't fight the DNA, and one's mother's face is, apparently, a preview of coming attractions. Says Reuters, "these findings may act as a further guideline for cosmetic rejuvenation of the eye region." Great. My own mom looks just fine. She's never used an antiaging product in her life, and for someone who was apparently never told that not sporting at least double-digit SPF every day is the worst sin in the entire world, well, she's certainly not the Dorothea Lange portrait ladymags are always insinuating. That said, she looks like what she is: an attractive woman of 60. And that isn't what we're supposed to want. We should be defying our age, not giving into it!

I gave my mom a call and asked her what she thought about all the age-defying tech out there. "Well," she said, "it's really much more defiant not to give into that, isn't it?" And she was right. Although I bought her some lotion with SPF and I think she's using it. "Health," she says, "I'll do. Vanity is very unattractive." I could have a worse blueprint.

It's Like Mother, Like Daughter When It Comes To Aging [Reuters]

A new wrinkle and scar injection called...

Maria — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:20:00 EST

A new wrinkle and scar injection called Vavelta promises to smooth out fine lines and scarring with a radical new ingredient: Cells from babies' foreskins, which are injected in the lower layers of the epidermis, eventually revealing younger-looking skin after a few months. The foreskins are donated by mothers of circumcised babies in U.S. hospitals. It's like a really strange type of recycling! [Daily Mail]

First Impressions

Maria — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:20:00 EDT

Ugh, just shoot us (up?): According to a new study, first impressions of a person related to his/her attractiveness and/or athleticism improve when the person has had Botox injections. However, the study did not find any positive correlation between Botox and heightened first impressions based on social skills, financial success, or "relationship success." Perhaps because part of having social skills includes the ability to emote? [Eureka Alert]

Making Billions From Bad Sausage: The History of Botox

Dodai — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:30:00 EDT

It's been 15 years since researchers first realized injecting a neurotoxin called botulinum could eliminate eye and forehead wrinkles (the FDA approved the treatment a mere 5 years ago). But do you know the twisted tale behind the poison millions of women rely on to keep their faces wrinkle-free? MSNBC traces the history of Botox today, and the story is both hilarious and horrifying. It starts in the 1820s, when Dr. Justinus Kerner studied a "batch of improperly prepared blood sausages" that had killed several dozen people and ended up injecting himself with the poisonous sausage filler. Over half a century later, Dr. Emile Pierre van Ermengem of Belgium was asked to investigate funeral meal from which three people died and 23 were paralyzed. The cause? Botulinum toxin was in the ham! Cut to the 1940s, when the U.S. was researching using biological weapons in Word War II. One plan? To have Chinese prostitutes slip tiny toxic pills into the food and drink of high-ranking Japanese officers.

Soon doctors found that small amounts of the toxin injected into hyperactive muscles caused temporary "relaxation." In the 1960s, an ophthalmologist used it on monkeys, hoping the muscle-relaxing effects would help crossed eyes. It did, and in the late '70s the American Ophthalmological Society declared it safe for treating crossed eyes in humans. By the '80s the toxin was also found to give temporary relief for facial spasms. And in 1992, Canadian ophthalmologist Dr. Jean Carruthers noticed her eye tic patients were losing their frown lines. Coincidentally, her husband was a dermatologist. Ding ding ding! They published a study stating that botulinum-A was "a simple, safe procedure" for treating brow wrinkles. Botox Cosmetic was given the FDA approval in 2002 and last year, sales were over $1 billion. From bad sausage to $1 billion! And the coveted cover of In Touch. But are women who use Botox really fooling anyone?

Frozen In Time: Botox Over The Years
Which Celebs Do You Think Have Had Botox? [MSNBC]

Get Smart.

Anna — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:36:43 EST

The reason your clothes get wrinkled. [Slate]

Do-It-Yourself home cleaning formulas. [Consumerist]

Your new birth-control pills could kill you. [NY Times]