The 2019 AARP Survey of Women's Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media
"Every year, my idea of aging evolves. Sure, fifty sounds a lot younger to me today than it did when I was 18. But a woman's relationship to getting older is about so much more than chronological age. Two years ago, we set out to ban the ridiculous term 'anti-aging.' The truth is we're all in favor of aging — aging brings wisdom, self-acceptance, beauty. Why should we be against that? When we first teamed up with AARP on a study to find out how women felt about beauty and aging, we were overwhelmed — saddened by some trends, inspired by others. It felt like the tip of the iceberg, and it was. So we did it again. Our friends at AARP gave us an early peek at their study of 1,992 women 18 and over, and we were once again blown away by the results. Wherever you stand on beauty or aging or the beauty of aging, I promise that you will see yourself reflected in this study. And I hope you too will be inspired so together, we can march towards the future a little wiser, a little older, a little more beautiful — a future in which aging is no longer a metaphorical four-letter word." — Michelle Lee, Editor in Chief
As a people, as a species, we love to quantify. Who among us isn't innately satisfied to know that we are like the 65% of women who twirl spaghetti with their right hand? Or the 92% who bite a broken nail? Or the 13% who plug their ears when they watch a horror movie? To fall into a group means we are not alone. (It also means nothing in these cases because all of the aforementioned statistics are entirely made up.) But when quantifying has the potential to speak to a deeper truth, that's when things get interesting. Or scary. Or inspiring. Or all of the above.
Two years ago, Allure put a stake in the ground, one that said (and we're paraphrasing here): "God, we are so sick and tired of anti-aging this and anti-aging that and why does aging have to be the enemy?" So we met all the anti-aging bottles and billboards and mandates and memes with one of our own. We called it anti anti-aging. Last year, we worked with AARP, who set out to quantify how women felt about aging and beauty. It was so eye-opening that we set out to do it again.
And the results were a great cause for celebration. The concept of beauty has jumped leaps and bounds from the Barbies and Goldilocks' of generations ago. Today, 45 percent of women would say that beauty is defined by personality, and even more encouraging, 46 percent believe beauty is defined by morals, character, and values. We also seem more connected to who we are — or at least we're working in that direction. Seventy five percent of us believe that looking good on the outside reflects how we feel on the inside.
And just how do we look on the outside? An encouraging 72 percent of us think we look pretty damn good, thank you very much.
You know what's nice about getting older? This: 66 percent of millennials focus on beauty to be attractive to other people. Ninety percent of boomers focus on beauty to be happy with their own looks. And what's even more encouraging than that is the idea that our very definition of beauty has evolved to be more inclusive: 84% of us agree with this statement: "My idea of beauty has become more inclusive of all types of people."
That's not to say we have given up vanity. Hardly. We spend about 24 minutes getting ready in the morning and about 17 minutes in the evening.
We're doing something right — in fact, 74 percent of us are. That's how many of us would say we have a good quality of life.
As women, we remain at odds with the world of advertising. And why this hasn't penetrated to the creatives in the boardroom we can't say, but we want to be very clear: eighty five percent of women wish ads had more realistic images of people. So ad professionals, you'll have another shot: We'll meet you here next year to see if you got the message.
Click here for more highlights from the AARP survey.
Mirror/Mirror: AARP Survey of Women’s Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media. Data were collected from 7/2/19–7/16/19 among 1,992 women ages 18+ and were weighted by age, region, education and race/ethnicity to reflect U.S. women ages 18+. https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00337.001
Originally Appeared on Allure
