Because even famous beauties struggle with wrinkles.
In this excerpt from her book No Filter, Paulina Porizkova explores how complicated aging can be, and how even supermodels sometimes find it tough to grapple with what they see in the mirror.
I woke up and opened my eyes. Well, sort of. I squinted them open. Even without looking in a mirror, I knew they had swelled up overnight. A quick visit to the bathroom mirror confirmed the transformation. Two giant-size strawberries had replaced where my eyes had been, complete with little seed dots, and my actual eyeball—a blue marble—barely visible in the center.
It didn’t particularly alarm me. I had, after all, paid money to look like this.
I knew that in about three or so days the swelling would go down, and I would be left with dozens of purple polka dots around my eyes, scabs that would eventually peel off a few days later. I gently patted on the serum my dermatologist had given me. It burned a little, like a sunburn.
I had gone to a dermatologist’s office to have these little dots burned into my skin. All this in the quest of boosting a little natural collagen. Which would, presumably, lift and tone the areas around my eyes. How much? Probably not a lot.
Why did I put myself through this? Because I’m a woman of middle age. I have been rendered invisible by our society’s standards of beauty. My whole life has been based on visibility; it has been my bread and butter since I was fifteen, and the loss of that is also the loss of a large part of my identity, the me I knew. I’m now the woman who buys every new cream on the market that promises to smooth and lift my skin, to erase my wrinkles. Even though I know better, even though I know there is no such magical potion in existence that can actually turn back the clock. Turn back to what? Youth, which is where visibility resides.
Ironically, in my youth, when most women are considered to be at the height of their beauty, I blabbered on and on about looking forward to aging. To me at the time, aging represented wisdom and confidence, both of which I sorely lacked. I was aware that I was valued only for the way I looked, not for all the other parts of me, and I imagined with age I’d gain the wisdom and confidence I longed for.
“The ugly may be beautiful, the pretty never,” wrote Tom Robbins in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. There is a difference between prettiness and beauty. Anyone can appreciate prettiness. It’s easy to look upon, in part because it’s a little bland. Like a pop song that you like right away, at first listen. It’s not memorable. It’s not unique. In fact, it’s the opposite of unique: if it pleases a multitude, it has a sort of middle-of-the- road characteristic that will offend no one, and therefore, thrill no one either. Prettiness is simple: it is youth and symmetry. A symmetrical face with no marks of aging will, almost always, be seen as pretty. It is fresh, it is alive, it is shiny. It is attractive. But is it beautiful? No.
Older women often become invisible because they’re no longer considered attractive. We’re invisible because we no longer attract attention from other people. This is part of the challenge of dating in middle age, but it isn’t only contained to romance. We don’t attract the attention of the waiter. We don’t attract the attention of the salesperson in the shoe store. We don’t attract the attention of the butcher at the supermarket when we’re trying to order a turkey for Christmas dinner. We don’t attract the attention of our boss at work, no matter how good our reports are. We’re invisible because we don’t attract attention. We are not attractive. We might be — in fact, I’d argue, we are — beautiful. But beauty and visibility are not in fact necessarily linked. If you are beautiful but not pretty or attractive, you may remain invisible to most. Only the connoisseurs of beauty, a select bunch, will notice you.
A symmetrical young woman is pretty. By that definition, the marks of aging are not pretty. Marionette lines around the mouth, hooded eyes, and crow’s-feet are not generally considered pretty.
I’m not making the tired point that everyone is beautiful on the inside. Rather, I’m making the point that everyone is beautiful on the outside. We have been trained to overlook beauty in favor of prettiness, freshness, youth. But as prettiness fades and what we think of as the ugliness of age emerges, it actually allows us to see the character, the physical beauty in faces. In every face.
Regardless of what I think of my own aging face and body, I look at you, a woman of a certain age, and I think you’re beautiful.
I love the hooded eyelids. They are sensual and a little sleepy. A little bedroomy. Like you’ve just made love and fallen asleep and the pleasures of your body, the rumpled sheets, have imprinted themselves on your eyes.
I love the 11s between your eyebrows. They make you look like a woman of deep thought. A woman who hasn’t let her life go by unnoticed.
Your crow’s-feet? They are maps of laughter. They are your history of squinting at the sun, of smiling at those you love, of the most joyous moments of your past.
I love the lines around your lips. Maybe you were smoking cigarettes late at night in a smoky club, or maybe you have kissed so many people in life that the kisses have etched their way onto your lips forever. The lines across your forehead are a reminder of every bit of excitement and delight you’ve ever witnessed, the presents you’ve opened, the open arms you’ve fallen into, all your moments of the unexpected and new.
The tendons in your neck look like the sails that cut and navigate the winds of your life. They lead you forward. Your neck looks strong, powerful. It shows the courage and the power of holding your head up, holding up the history of your life.
The crepey soft skin that gathers on your belly and on your legs and arms, why not think of it as the rumpled silk sheets on a bed in the morning? It’s far more interesting than a smoothly made bed. It has a history of making love.
I love the life you’ve lived, etched in your face and body. The history of your life written in your skin. That’s why you are beautiful.
Why can’t I feel the same way about my own face? Why do I need to go and have little dots burned into the skin around my eyes with lasers that heat up and wound my skin so that it needs to rebuild itself a tiny bit smoother, a tiny bit thicker? Why can’t I resist every new age- defying product on the market? Why do I have to battle my face in the mirror every day?
If only I could feel the same way about myself as I feel about you. Perhaps it’s a matter of comparison, not between you and me, but between me and myself. Me as a young pretty woman and me as an older woman of character. A face with character is a face that is an original work of art. A face of beauty.
I have to choose between battling two wars. Either the war against invisibility or the war for self-acceptance.
In the war against invisibility, I can battle my own face with the help of professionals. I can erase lines and sags with modern technology. I can buy myself some more time at the main table, where the action of life happens. I can use Botox and fillers and scalpels to be pretty again, but at the cost of losing the characteristics that are unique to me, and which I’ve worked so hard to achieve. Tweaking with Botox erases wrinkles and, with it, character. Botox erases beauty in favor of prettiness. I understand why so many women get Botox and fillers. Those procedures help us regain prettiness—they buy back some visibility in the world in a way that our beauty and character will not. For those of us who want to be visible, it may seem like the best option. But which do I want more: Visibility or character? Prettiness? Or my life, with all its joy and grief, written on my face?
In the war for self-acceptance, I have to battle myself, not to erase but to acquire: confidence, self- assurance, and acceptance. I want to be seen for all that I am: the good, the bad, the beautiful.
