Younger here. I got some good genes from my birthmother (her mom: 97 and going strong, and her mother in turn lived to be 95), and can always win a prize at carnivals and amusement parks when they try to guess my age (46)-almost always 5 years low if not lower.
I used to look older and could get into nightclubs and buy booze way* before I turned the legal age (18/20 respectively); but these last couple of years I think I’m starting to look my true age. But maybe I’m just in pre-30 denial.
*I bought booze at the liquor store when 17.
No.
Apparently I look much younger. I work in academia, and am regularly mistaken for an undergrad. I’d think if nothing else my clothes would give me away, how many young co-eds always dress in business casual attire? But the other day some student volunteers asked me if I was on campus for freshman orientation!
Perversely, this kind of thing makes me feel older rather than younger. My freshman orientation was while Clinton was still in office. I was much thinner then too!
About ten years younger then I am (42). I sometimes feel I haven’t reached enough goals for my own age (just, at 40 bought a home & had a kid) but my situation in life fits nicely with how old I look.
Either way, depending on who’s looking. I’m 29, and have passed for anywhere between 24 and about 37.
I’ve always been told I look much younger than my age (43). Well, “always” meaning from my 20’s on…when I was younger, I often was mistaken for being OLDER. :dubious:
Even in my 30’s, I invariably got carded going to clubs or buying cigs or alcohol (the reason I got a state ID card at 31 or so, because I didn’t drive at the time and needed id)
I’ve been carded in the last year, and the person looked at my licsence, then at me, then back at the date and said, “Wow, you look good for your age!”
I don’t mind it as much now as I used to 
But as nice as it feels to be told I look so much younger, it can be problematic when it comes to being taken seriously in work or other matters, I’ve found. At a recent temp job I did, the woman supervising me discovered my age (we were chatting and it came out I had kids, one of them 17, and her jaw just dropped) and I could tell the change in her attitude towards me from that point on…she treated me a bit more like an equal.
Same thing has happened at other jobs, where I realized I was being treated as if I had much less experience and skill than I did because they assumed I was very young…I’ve had to find ways of subtly revealing my actual age/experience to get the respect and/or responsibility I felt I deserved.
One supervisor (at a short-term job I ended up quitting over said supervisor’s attitude towards me) was condescening and rude and treated me like an idiot for no apparent reason. I said to an older co-worker one day, “I’m tired of being treated like a damn teenager!” :mad: He said, “Well, you LOOK like a teenager.”
Hardly, but even if I DID, or even if I WAS a teenager, please judge me on my WORK, not how old you assume I am, please.
Anyway, it may all catch up with me overnight one day, and I will look “my age” or older. 
I should add that age discrimination obviously goes both ways…lots my age or slightly older and who look it have found themselves being discriminated against in hiring. Either way, ANY way, that shouldn’t happen. People should be judged based on their abilities, not how old or young they appear physically.
People always think that I am at least 5-10 years younger than I actually am. I hated this when I was younger, but since my mid-twenties I have quite enjoyed it.
I have been told that I look about 5-10 years younger than I am, but I’m not sure that applies anymore. I suspect a lot of the reason people have the impression that I am younger when they meet me, is due to my voice, which is relatively high. Plus, I’m not married, no kids, etc, and tend to act younger than many people my age.
Older. (Check my profile) I’m 47, but I have tons of grey hair and always have had.
Short interlude.
Did you hear about that new drug that makes you look like a teenager?
Two tablets and your face breaks out.
Sorry
I can pass for 13 if I shave.
I’ve always been mistaken for someone older since I became a teenager. I am 19 and often times people assume I am much older.
The reasons?
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I act older than I actually am in terms of maturity level.
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My genetics have set me up to be prematurely graying (and I love it, despite what anyone else thinks)
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I don’t actually have a third, I just felt better having it here.
That is about it.
Younger - people are always surprised at my age. This is from last August, when I was 43 (I’m the brunette).
Well, there’s this thing called hair dye Seriously, I started getting white hairs (my hair is very dark brown, almost black, and goes white, not gray) in my 20’s…just a few right in the front at first.
Now, I usually keep a dye or rinse on and periodically let it grow out…just out of curiosity 
I now, at 43, have an almost solid swath/streak of white from my temples back and white strands throughout the top of my head. Almost look like Sweeney Todd, for heaven’s sake:eek:
But nary a wrinkle on my face (oh, except those little horizontal lines on the forehead that have likewise been there forever).
I think having a more olive, skin tone helps. (this is my payback for the oily skin and acne of my youth, ha, ha!) It certainly isn’t due to using sunscreen most of my life! I’ve only recently begun using it regularly, and being careful about sun exposure on my face, using daily sunscreen and soy complex and wearing hats because I started getting those dark areas linked to hormones/age…and interestingly, a recent study found that those dark patches caused people to rate a person as older even more than wrinkles or gray hair did.
I think atttitude and manner has a lot to do with other’s perceptions of our age. I’ve always been a bad judge of age in others (and in myself…I’m not sure WHY people think me so much younger, because I can see the changes in myself, and I’m not sure WHAT 30 or 40 or 50 or whatever is “supposed” to look like)
But I recall my mom, when she turned 50 or so, started dressing like a granny, cut her hair short and permed it, and started acting “old”. And she didn’t look that old, otherwise. Was like she had this mental idea in her head that THIS was what 50 was supposed to look and act like. Weird.
I don’t care if my face looks like Keith Richards at 50 and my hair is completely gray/white…just PLEASE, never let me start dressing and acting “old” because I think it’s what I should do.
When I went out to lunch with my student teacher, who is 21, the cashier asked us if we were both on break from college. I live in a college town, and am often mistaken for a student. I guess that would mean that I appear about 16 years younger than I am. I have no facial wrinkles or grey hair, which I attribute to vigorous applications of sunscreen and good genes. I’m also small and short, which makes people think I’m younger for some reason. I personally do not think I look 21, though I’d be OK with saying late 20s. I wonder how rapid having a kid is going catch me up to my actual age…
If my hair has been dyed recently, so that no grey roots are showing, I’m carded. And I’m 51. When I was a tween, I started having very oily skin, and even at my age, my face is rather oily, though my hands and legs now need moisturizing. I’ve had one sunburn in my life, and it was very mild. Even back in the 60s and 70s, when it was very fashionable to have a very deep tan, I only tried to tan a few times. I don’t get very dark, but I don’t burn, either. And I found that lying out in the sun, trying to follow fashion, is very boring. Now I don’t have the sun damage that many folks my age have. In my entire life, I believe that I’ve smoked maybe a couple of packs of cigarettes, all before I was 16, when I lived with my grandparents and my grandfather was a horrid example of what smoking is really like.
So, I started off with the oily skin, I didn’t damage it, and now I am just starting to get crow’s feet. My smile lines are just a teensy bit deeper than they used to be. My upper eyelids are just starting to look a bit crepey, if someone gets a close look. And around here, if you look 30 or younger, you get carded. So I guess that I look quite a bit younger. I know that when I mention that I have a 30 year old daughter, people gawk at me.
Yes, a lot is genetics/skin type. I grew up in Texas and got LOTS of sun exposure, not from “tanning”, just from being out and swimming, but I always just tanned very dark (my daughter is the same way, even though I slather her with sunscreen, her skin is almost as dark as her Black friend by summer’s end) and only had a few burns ever. (from very prolonged exposure)
My skin is still oily as well, not shiny, ick oily, but enough so that by the end of the day, I can run my hand over it and feel the thin layer of oil there.
I had someone say to me once, upon learning my age (she’d seen my husband and assumed he was MUCH older, when in fact, he was only 2 yrs my senior), “Wow, you must have taken REALLY good care of yourself!” I replied, honestly, “No, not really.” 
:o
I’ve smoked for many years (on and off, currently on and planning to quit) and drank enough for two lifetimes. On the other hand, I’ve been a vegetarian, sometime vegan, for about 15 yrs, (I recently started eating fish, just 'cause I like it) and used to cycle 60 plus miles a week (for about 6 yrs)…currently not as active, but still no slouch.
My grandmother lived to be 100, and smoked like a chimney for at least 70 yrs of her life. Also drank in moderation, but regularly. Drank coffee, hot and cold, like water. And ate CRAP, for the most part (I used to lecture on it:rolleyes:) She was also pretty active up until age 85 or so (when she broke a hip…before that, she walked a LOT)
Lots of things we can do to stave of aging and illness and death, but fact is, a lot of it comes down to genes.
I’m 37 and most people think I’m 25-30, and it’s all genetics: on both sides of the family, no one looks their age. When my grandfather was 91 he looked like he was in his 70s. My parents are each 61 and could both pass for late 40s/early 50s. Etc. I only ever mind it professionally, when someone assumes that I’m too young to know what I’m talking about, but that happens less and less frequently. In that regard, being mistaken for 25 is better than being mistaken for 21.