We are all fighting—and losing—an inescapable battle to ourselves and to time.  

Mortality is not something we are able to escape. However, that doesn’t stop us from trying. 

As we have learned to conquer disease and pain, we have been baffled when left to the true test of time, and the fact that there is nothing we can do to slow it. 

Life and death are the two main events in our lives, and from the moment we are born, we spend each second creeping closer slowly towards the inevitable end. 

We embark on this mandatory journey as the body grows in unison with the developing mind, and in the first few decades, we watch this in a fashion of celebration. With candles and cake, we celebrate how far the mind and body has come. And while yes, we have endured a few bruises or scars, and the skin on our knees and elbows is flakey and scabbed, that is simply how we mark the fleeting time. Young skin heals easily.

Now, this ceremonial aging takes a turn as we approach adulthood. No matter your preparation, you start to see the dimples in your cheek sag, and deep furrows above your eyebrows, and you have switched the blemish spot treatment on your counter with an anti-aging retinol because obviously, aging—or time—is something you can escape or prevent.

Wrinkles are an infamous side effect of age, and as a 16-year-old, I have already been made to dread their arrival. To prevent these imperfections, there are a few natural lifestyle changes you can make. Examples of these are spending less time in the sun and avoiding repetitive facial expressions.   

So, to hinder the onset of wrinkles, naturally, one must stay inside, in order to do less living. Because to look like you haven’t lived, you must try not to. 

You also must not smile too much, or squint, or frown, or raise your eyebrows. We prioritize not a smiling face, no, but one without wrinkles. 

And each and every time we scroll through social media, or walk through the cosmetic isles near any store, we are told we can stop this monster of aging if we stop drinking from straws, or wear sunscreen, or spend way too much money on a cream.    

And while very possibly these may actually be a partial solvent, why should we need them? Who deemed age ugly?

Companies pitching products and surgeries to reverse and prevent aging are preying on the instilled ideology that life, or looking like you have lived it, is ugly. That while we have to continue day by day to exist, we can’t look like we have.

Youth is not a product. You cannot buy youth in a moisturizer or serum because it is a moment in your life. We shouldn’t be made to think that youth is interminable and that we can or should pay or act in a way to prolong its existence.  

Instead of promoting the ideology that age can be prevented, a switch should be made to not hide, but highlight age. Instead of pushing consumer products carrying the label of “prevent aging” instilling the concept that it needs to be prevented, products that are created for aging skin to nourish it, and help it hold its natural beauty should be promoted. Advertising the concept of maintaining healthy skin at any age, and not the reversal time.