Beyond anti-ageing: embracing every age

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that life is fragile. With this comes the awareness that ageing is a gift – and we’re seeing a change in attitudes to ageing as a beauty concern as a result.

For so long, youth has been a focus of beauty – but now, consumers are turning away from products claiming to preserve, emulate or recapture youth. Instead, there is an increasing desire to embrace ourselves as we are.

Hannah Roberts, Global Brand Director of ANEW, says: “A stark realisation that the pandemic has brought to us all is that getting older is not something to be afraid of or a battle ‘to win’, it’s something to strive for. So, in the conversations around skincare, we will see the shift in the narrative away from messages that we ‘should’ turn back time, towards conversations around effective products that address our specific needs to give us our most beautiful and resilient skin. Age does not define you, you will define you.”

For example, there is a rising demand for ingredients that adapt to the precise needs of our skin, such as hormone-targeted products. As our 2020 Future of Beauty report revealed, women are unprepared and uninformed when it comes to the menopause and the changes in the body it can bring, and more of us seek solutions to alleviate the common symptoms affecting our skin. Avon Adapt is a range of products with innovative ingredients chosen to be effective for menopausal skin, including adaptogens derived from plant extracts, that works by “adapting” their function to bring balance and provide overall well-being.

The embracing ageing trend has emerged alongside a movement towards authenticity, which is prized above apparent – filtered – perfection, as shown in the rise of real-life social media giant TikTok which has given a global platform to ‘real’ people, resulting in a countertrend to the highly polished world of Instagram that has dominated for so long.

The end result for skincare and beauty is that the story is not about simply anti – or pro – ageing, but about authentic ageing: we understand our skin and want to give it what it needs to be healthy, strong and radiant, whatever our stage of life.

To learn more about key trends in beauty and how the industry is changing due to the pandemic, check out our Future of Beauty report .