LOVE IT AND LEAVE IT ALONE

The Dove Pro-Age campaign, with its midlife bare beauties, might be called Real Age.
These true life models are how women of a certain age really look. Not air-brushed or digitalized. Not lifted, stapled or remodeled. Just real women. Lovely in their own ways, wearing nothing but their years. Individual and imperfect.

What a relief, to see such women in fashion magazines and up on billboards. Imagine, if we saw faces and bodies like this all the time it wouldn’t be such a shock when our own faces grew lined and our bodies acquired dimples where we never had them before.

As I wrote in my newspaper column (Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 25, 2007) the very idea that a beauty product line could call itself pro-age is as rare a marketing ploy as showing mature women out of their sweatpants.

What a boost for those in the “I’ve earned my wrinkles camp,” who are constantly bombarded by cultural messages that image is everything and the younger the better and we better hurry on out and buy all the anti-aging, wrinkle-ridding potions we can.

Suddenly even that face in the mirror looks pretty darned good.