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I think the Anna Nicole Smith pic is just probably the most unfortunate photograph ever taken. She's making a funny face, has her neck all twisted, has horrible horrible horrible makeup on, and it's shot from below - all conspiring to make her look like Cruella DeVille's ugly sister.
Jaysus it actually sounds like I'm defending Anna Nicole Smith.
I have nothing against aging blondes, or aging anything or anyone else, but I do think that all women (and men, if they're into it) should wear LESS MAKEUP as they get older, not more. Also, when your beauty or sex appeal is all that you have going for you, it must be really scary to see it slipping away.
*gives loquacious the bleach she didn't use when last highlighting her hair so that he may bleach his eyeballs and then reinsert them into his eye sockets*
jon, if you ever have any daughters, one of the first things they want to do when they can clutch things in their chubby little fingers is to mark Dad up like a whore, with ill-applied nail polish and lipstick and eye shadow. You will be one of their first test subjects. After you're painted up like a trollop, you will be forced to endure an imaginary tea party. And you will love every second of it.
jon, if you ever have any daughters, one of the first things they want to do when they can clutch things in their chubby little fingers is to mark Dad up like a whore, with ill-applied nail polish and lipstick and eye shadow.
I have a sister who is 15 years younger than me. I let her and her little freinds use my head to play beauty parlor when they we preschoolers, because I am a good older brother. But thankfully they were too young to know about makeup.
Besides, my beauty regimen of poor hygeine, indifference to fashion, bad diet and heavy drinking has served me well.
Why? She's 42 now. I mean if I was to bitchfest the clothing and accessories are charity reject material. A bit of unfortunate frumpry. But I think she otherwise looks pretty good. If she's been cut I don't notice it. Lighting/makeup are also not completely flattering. But in a general sense I definitely find her to be still attractive. Maybe not whiplash causing drop dead gorgeous, but I've always thought she was better than pleasant.
I used to go to Rocky all the time when I was younger. Including during my first acid trip. But I'll pass on the lingerie. I don't even care for lingerie on women, remember?
Yeah, I agree Peacay, and it's mostly just an unfortunate photo, like most of the photos that show up on the bitchy celebrity sites. But there's something so resigned about the way she looks in that shot... I always think of her as this great looking, sleek woman. Maybe I'm just too close to her in age, but I don't want my iconography fucked with like this. (And to think I started looking at gofugyourself.com to escape the despair from the political blogs. Big mistake....)
I can't think of anyone that looks good when photographed from below. That said, Anna Nicole looks rather plastic even if photographed in a more flattering way.
Once in a while I'll see a photograph of Pamela without makeup. She is a pretty woman. She needs to quit with the tan-in-a-can and apply make-up with something smaller than a trowel. I mean, look at that lip-line. Talk about colouring outside the lines.
And yeah, Helen Hunt looks rather ..er.. hunted. Or is that haunted?
Now that I'm forty and have been dating again for the last few years, I've really noticed that among American women, it seems, there's a great deal of diversity of apparent age at about 40. But not by 45 or 50, really, so those that are 40 but look 32 don't have much longer to be so "young".
But in general, I'm really confused these days about people's ages, except those upwards of 55 and those below 14.
Well, here's a friend of mine and she was 39 when I took that photo last year (a horrible photo, mind you). She looks "early thirties" to me and no plastic surgery or anything. On the other hand, looking through online personal ads, there's a whole lot of 40 year-old women that look as if they were 53. Maybe they're lying about their age, though. Hmm, the woman I'm kinda sorta dating now is also 40 but looks more like, say, 35.
I have no idea how old I look. I'm watching my beard go gray on a weekly basis. Seriously, very little gray (you had to look closely to see it) only eight months ago, now quite a bit. I'd have a lot of gray in my hair...if I had any hair to speak of.
I'm feeling and watching myself become less youthful all the time. Gray hairs are starting to come in, wrinkles on my face, tendency to hate teenagers, the works. But I intend to grow old gracefully, no hair dye, no rogaine, no surgery. Frankly, I thing old age will actually be my milleu. I like talking to old farts in bars better than young people already.
I vacillate between raging against the dying of the if not light then well, gorgeous young thing bit and being resigned to it, waiting for my Crone robes and official wisdom plaque. Mostly though I whine about how nobody ever whistles at me anymore, and then when they do I tell all my friends. Pathetic, that's me. Fortunately or unfortunately I'm too much of a wimp to ever have plastic surgery (I can't see going under the knife/laser/botulism voluntarily) but they will have to pry my Lady Clairol from my cold dead fingers. I am not going to have gray hair. There are limits to this aging gracefully shtick.
Pamela is adorable without makeup (what the hell is up with that lip liner?), Helen needs an eyelid lift or maybe some glasses, Anna just looks bad under most circumstances, and Emmylou is one of the most beautiful people in the world and will probably always be.
Getting older is weird. I'm sorry to say that for someone who relied on her looks more than she should have when younger, aging is a shocker. You don't REALLY think you'll ever look older, but suddenly there's no denying that you're middle aged and you look like it.
I was reading a great article about how women learn to re-define themselves as sexual beings when their looks aren't a part of that anymore. Now that I'm adjusting to it, it's liberating and fun. I'm sillier, smarter and take less shit. I'm a better listener. I'm kinder.
Having said all that, I have to tell you that I nevertheless own more lipsticks than anyone you know, and I still kick ass in stilettos. I always will.
I worked with a woman whose hair went completely white by the time she was in her late 20's. She looked absolutely amazing, and people would gaze at her like she was a magical unicorn thingy in the midst of mortals.
Yeah, my laughlines are definitely noticable these days. But that's cool. If you've laughed so much in your life that it left permanent marks on your face, you have no right to complain. And so I won't.
Plus, I just lost 15 pounds and am feeling pretty damn awesome about that.
But back to the topic at hand. Here's what's left of Courtney Love.
That's Courtney Love? When I first saw it it looked like Bette Midler after a big night out.
this photo of poor Helen Hunt just haunts me ...
... I've always thought she was better than pleasant.
Much, much better than pleasant, in my opinion. Except that, as with 99.99% of celebrities, she has got stuck on the "thinner is better" bandwagon in the last few years.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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