Last year I finally attended one of my High School reunions. The mumble-ty one.
Anyway, this was the first time I’d seen many of these people in ages, and after a bit I started noticing how much younger the black girls looked than the whte ones, facially I mean. (Whoops. Of course we’re all women now, it’s just in my mind we remain ‘girld.’)
Maybe it was observer error, but I don’t think so. The white women simply had way more wrinkles – around the eyes, the mouth, the forehead. And besides not having as many wrinkles, the black women’s skin looked better – smoother and softer and, oh, just younger.
I was amused (in a nasty way, bad me!) that the women who looked oldest and most worn were exactly the blonde goddess who had ruled socially.
So… is this is generally true, does it all go down to sun damage? As in, darker skin is naturally better protected from the sun?
Yes, the difference in wrinkling between types of complexions is a documented phenomenon; see p. 435 of Wilhelm et al., Bioengineering of the skin: skin imaging and analysis (on Googlebooks):
Interestingly, it isn’t just amount of melanin or skin darkness that determines amount of wrinkling, since lighter-skinned East Asians tend to express less wrinkling than darker-skinned African-Americans. This article notes,
The same article also gets into the biological causes of wrinkling:
I hope that paragraph conveyed more to you than it did to me! Seriously, that looks like the place to start if you want information about skin ageing.
I’ve heard African American people use the expression “black don’t crack”. It really is amazing how young older black people can look. I’ve met some in their 60’s-70’s, & even older, take away any gray hair & they could pass for 40-something. I’ve also noticed Asian people seem to take greater care in avoiding sun exposure, utilizing umbrellas, newspapers, anything to hold up & keep sun off the face, whereas many whites still go out of their way to get sun, go to tanning beds, etc., despite all the warnings about skin damage/cancer/aging, & I guess it shows in the long run **.
I remember once uh, walking through the room while my mom was watching Oprah, and they had an aging specialist on and Oprah and the other black lady on the show were shocked to hear that white women often lose their lips as they get older. It had absolutely never occurred to them.
That same show had a good explanation of a dichotomy I’ve always noticed - some people are “sinkers” and some people are “saggers” when you get old, and it’s two completely different problems. I know I’m going to be a sinker - I take after my dad’s side of the family and it’s sinking all the way. I guess I should bid a fond farewell to my lips before long, too - the whole family’s short on lip to begin with, and my elderly aunts look like angry snapping turtles.
I specifically came into this thread to use the phrase “black don’t crack.” Anecdotally (I’m black), most of my white friends think my parents look roughly 20 years younger than they are. I think they look their age. Once I’m dealing with the age 35+ crowd, when guessing a white woman’s age, I consider how old the person looks to me, then subtract about 15 years. This usually works. 35 and under, I’ve found, everyone’s age more or less looks the same.
Being Asian, I can attest to that. It seems that only Asian women use those face visors that cover up their entire face when going out. They wear big hats when walking in the sun and use sunscreen whenever they have to be outside for more than 15 mins. I’ve never seen a non-Asian do that. The behavior seems limited only to Asian women
I just saw a former co-worker of mine whom I haven’t seen in almost 10 years. She’s black and I swear to Og, she hasn’t aged a day. She’s in her mid-sixties so she should at least have some wrinkles dammit!
Hmm. I’m pretty fair skinned, but I hate being hot and sweaty so I’ve never done any sunbathing or spent a lot of time out in the sun. Maybe that’ll spare me from wrinkles for a few extra years.
I wondered about fatness, too. I mean, if you’re skin is stretched tight over a layer of fat, wrinkles can’t set in as easily, yes?
I’d say older Asian women. Some younger women do worry about staying pale, but they usually just carry around parasols in the summer (I’m not kidding). The visors are limited to our moms.
Westernization is slowly convincing people that tanning can also be attractive, but the older generation remains unconvinced.
It’s definately not all due to skin lightness or sun exposure. I’ve done some reading about this. I am inclined to think that genetics play the largest role and diet is the other main factor.
My family ages well for white people, but we have pale dry skin and get a lot of fine lines. While I still look really young for my age I have more fine lines in close-up at age 24 than my (Italian, olive-skinned) boyfriend does at 41. I’ll take them over sagging, though.
Yes, IMHO as a pale pale white person it’s true that we wrinkle earlier. I am obsessed with sunscreen and even copy the aforementioned Asian practice of walking around under an umbrella when it’s sunny but I still have noticeable wrinkles and I’m 26.
I think part of it is that our skin has less protection in the form of pigmentation, and part of it is just that wrinkles show up more easily on light-colored things (think of shirts).
I was recently in Vietnam and our tour guide (who was my own age) was asking all of our ages and when he got to me he seemed shocked and said, “Really? I can never tell the ages of white people.” Hehe. I understand where he’s coming from, but… thanks for the subtlety. :smack:
Besides avoiding the sun through umbrellas and hats, there’s also the fact that Asian women tend to use facial creams religiously. Every single one of my mom’s friends have a specific expensive brand of cream they slather on twice daily. For as long as I can remember, my mom has given me a bottle of facial lotion to use while admonishing me that skin needed to be preserved while young. So there’s a bit of obsessiveness with youthful, non-wrinkled skin there.
