Guess what? Aging is something you don't need to cure.

That’s me, I’m calling myself out. This photo is of 30-something year old me doing something I shouldn’t have done. For well over 20 years in my stores, on my own websites, on my TV appearances, and in articles I uttered the toxic phrase, anti aging. I did it to sell and educate others on how to literally stop aging…. as if that is real or healthy or ever possible, it’s not.

I was part of the problem for so long. 6-7 years ago I made the intentional decision to stop using it. I stopped and so did a huge portion of my income. I said no to brands that used that phrase in marketing, in copywriting, anywhere. I even alerted pr firms not to email me anything with a subject line that had the phrase, as it will not be opened. My 25 years in beauty was always connected to wellness. Wellness is how we feel about ourselves in our skin. I couldn’t be a part of the probelm any longer. If I was truly serious about wellness and wellbeing, anti-aging couldn’t be a part of my vernacular. I needed to be the change I wanted to see. We have to start with us to be and create change and not rely on others to make radical shifts. Did this shift impact my life, yes. Did I lose most of my work in beauty, yes. Brands wanted me to say it on TV, they wanted to make sure I used it in my stories. It was a decision that I had to make for myself, I no longer wanted to be a part of the problem for young women.

We, and I’m saying this as a collective we as women, continue to raise awareness for aging graefully, for being an agesit and owning the age we are, for wanting people to honor and respect the aging process. We applaud those that share their aging beautiful stories YET in the next sentence people almost unconciously say anti-aging. You can’t be about owning your age and in the next breath say anti-age. Anti-age literally means you are against aging. THIS is what the beauty industry has pushed as normal rhetoric to frighten us. It is a way to make serious money out of our insecurities of showing age. Show a sign of age, how terrible.

It has become so deeply threaded into our daily vernacular that I witness women and men that I greatly admire say it and it slides off the tongue as gently and calmly as butter. Ageism is a real battle across the board. Words matter. What we say has meaning and when we step back and truly put a microscope on a HUGE elephant in the room of mental health and self image a lot of it goes right back to the beauty industry and this simple pharse. Women are terrified of showing their age. I see it playing out right in front of my eyes with dear friends all around me.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to look great and feel great in my skin. I think we all do. Do what makes you feel great but words matter to the women in our lives and to the women of our future. Why should women of tomorrow suffer with the fear of aging when it is celebrated and revered in cultures elsewhere? As if aging is something we need to “battle” against?

The 1980’s are long gone and so should this old sterotypical way of speaking about age. Ditch anti-aging, stop the fear mongering way to speak and sell to women.

Help the women of the future feel strong in their skin. I know it will make an even greater impact on their brains and they certainly deserve it!