Wanna Be Forever Young

As I grow with age, my face does not age much over the years. I am actually not too bothered if I look young or not because I believe part of looking young is genetic.

Most importantly, I am really cool and take things easy. How we look is up to the judgement of other people, we cannot change other people’s opinions about us but we can adjust our expectations and the way we handle negative remarks.

If you want to know how you will look when you are old, take a look at your parents for reference because they are the best indications of how your appearance will look down the road. Parents are the first tier of indication and the second tier to look out for are your immediate relatives such as the siblings of both your parents.

For women, if you want to know whether you will put on weight permanently after giving birth, take a look at your mother and your aunties. Do they put on weight after they give birth? Take a look at your mother’s photo before she gave birth.

Maybe she was the same size and had the same body shape as you when she was younger. For men, you can guess roughly whether you will be bald by looking at your father. These are the inheritance of traits from our parents.

The above are just guidelines. There are other factors contributing to how one may look different from their parents. One may decide to lose weight and build muscle to improve his appearance. Other aspects like the environment that we work in, the kind of friends that we hang out with, our mental, emotional and spiritual states affect the way how we look physically.

Have you come across 2 people with the same age and attributes, equally fit and has nice looking, radiant complexion but can’t explain sometimes why one person looks younger than the other party? Attitude and behaviour play a huge part in youth. One is strong and silent whereas the other is talkative and humorous. In your imagination, who do you think look younger?

An unhappy person in life will always frown. Too much frowning will cause the deepening of lines around the forehead and eyes area. People who keep their unhappiness inside their hearts will subconsciously tighten up their lips as a way of self-defence. This action develops lines around the mouth and on the lip area.

One golden piece of advice for these people is to try and relax their minds first by taking things easy and maintaining a poker face whereas possible instead of showing too many facial expressions. Talk about the problems instead of communicating them using the face.

I practise over the decades by having a poker face when I am unhappy just for the same reason I have stated. I want to avoid having wrinkles as much as possible but I do not carry this practice as far as the woman below.

Tess Christian, 50 years old, has deliberately evaded smiling totally for the past 40 years for the sake of not getting a single line on her face. Her effort has paid off and the doctor has confirmed that it can be an anti-ageing technique where many actresses use it to minimise the wrinkles on their faces. You can read the full story and see more of her photos.

This is definitely a crazy thought for the majority of sane people to go to this extreme method in exchange to get rid of facial lines. I would rather smile and laugh more to my friends with my happiness. I do not want to be seen as an icy beauty.

Such a method is ridiculous and too far-fetched in life. I wonder how happy can she be when she said that she loved her life but she would not express it through her face.

I must say that Singaporeans (or rather Asians) generally look young for their age thanks to our tropical weather which allows our face to produce enough oil so we do not get wrinkled that easily.

I assume people who read this want to look young forever and do not want to be in the range of looking like our age or worst, older. Most people yearn to look younger than their actual age. Once the first sign of ageing occurs, it is hard to reverse the process naturally other than cosmetic surgery.

Our skin cells renewal slows down and gravity takes a toll on us. Some people are more stressed and less happy with each passing year. All these devitalise our psychological well-being and make us appear older than we really are.

I would like to share more information in my blog on How to Look Younger with Skin Care and How to Look Younger with Makeup [Part II]. There are some little tricks here and there that I do religiously. Taking a Professional Bridal Makeup Course 10 years ago improved my makeup technique tremendously although I didn’t do it as a full-time job.

Below is my personal problem on a trip that I have gone through when I stayed in France.

Studying In Université de Nantes, France in 2014

When I studied the French language at Université de Nantes, France in 2014, my classmates always thought that I looked younger than my actual age. My class comprised of Asians, Americans and Europeans. Westerners generally look older than Asians of the same age. The look disparity becomes more apparent with the increasing age.

The most awesome compliment ever came across was from a 21-year-old Chinese classmate who thought that I was an intern like her who had around the same age.

When my university could not help me get my insurance because I was over 26 years, they asked me to get my own insurance outside. The insurance agency referred me back to my university when they learnt that I was a student without even asking me my age. My guess was that they thought I was below 26 years old. With limited spoken French then, I had a problem explaining my situation.

One French friend offered to help me do the translation the second time I went to the Insurance Agency. He didn’t know about my actual age too. He presumed I was having a problem getting insurance because of the language barrier.

The same thing happened at the counter when the officer referred back to the school. I was quite sure it was the age problem again although he didn’t state it explicitly.

The third time I went back alone to the insurance Agency after 3 months and found myself a translator. I gave the translator my age in French and English and 2 times she repeated my age for her colleague to key in the data, she took off 10 years from there.

I had to tell her with my fingers the third time so she can get it right. She had a look of bewilderment and said that I looked so young. I feel that people just believe what they see and does not really bother to listen to the truth.

(Featured Photo Credit: Jakkree Thampitakkull)