How To Keep Your Edge, Even As You Get Older

There’s an episode of the Simpsons where Homer discovers that he is no longer as cool as he once thought. He walks into a record store and asks for the vinyls of all his favorite bands from the 1970s, but to his dismay, they’re all in the “golden oldies” bin, jumbled together unceremoniously, like some awful yard sale.

At that point, Homer realizes that a fundamental shift has occurred in his life. He’s no longer part of the “cool” youthful in-club. Instead, he is now a boring middle-aged man that his teenage self would have once mocked.

For Homer, it is a moment of crisis. He wonders whether he can ever relive the glory days and reclaim his adolescence. Something that he thought he had been carrying with him is suddenly lost to the passage of time. How would he have been so ignorant?

Of course, this parable is something that we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. We’d like to believe that we will always be hip and trendy. But the reality is that keeping up with the latest beauty and fashion is a challenge, especially when your body is changing and aging fast!

However, the good news is that you don’t have to be like Homer if you don’t want to be. There are plenty of older people who are still cool. For them, age does just seem like a number. It doesn’t appear to affect how people perceive them at all. How is this possible?

In this post, we discuss how to keep your edge as you get older. Read on to find out more.

 

Invest In A Beauty Mentor

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First on your list of priorities should be to invest in a beauty mentor - somebody who understands how to make you look your best.

Beauty mentors are gurus of the industry - people who have spent years in the trade and know what will work for you and what won’t. Often, they’re able to provide just the kind of bespoke advice you need to get out of a rut and feel better about your appearance.

Don’t be afraid to ask younger people too. If you have a daughter, use her to find how you make yourself look less frumpy and chicer.

If you go for high-class advice, you’ll probably need to pay for it. But when you do, you can get some big payoffs. Suddenly, you learn the paradigm of what works for you - a system you can use in the future.

 

Update Your Hair

You might not feel comfortable showing as much flesh as you used to, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take risks with your hair. Hard part haircuts are all the rage right now - something that can immediately give you the edge you crave. They look great on both middle-age and young people alike.

 
Don’t want to go down that route? You don’t have to. There are all sorts of styles out there that you can use to celebrate your age and the changes you are experiencing. Getting a cut that is a little at odds with societal expectations can instantly make you stand out from the crowd and create a positive, slightly left-of-center first impression. If you choose to cut your own hair for whatever the reason, just make sure that you look at best scissor brands before buying a pair for yourself.

Steer Clear Of Baggy Clothes

Many of us like to wear baggy clothing because it makes us feel more comfortable in social situations. We don’t want bits of our bodies protruding in random directions.

It turns out, though, that going baggy is one of the best ways to age yourself. Instead of making your look smaller, this type of clothing exaggerates your size, making you appear more frumpy.

We’re not saying that you should buy latex pants and fill your wardrobe with elastane and spandex. But choosing something that vaguely follows the contours of your form can help tremendously. It’ll help you feel like you’ve reclaimed some of your youth and make you feel more confident - a great bonus for any long-term relationship.

Steer Clear Of Tights

Tights are a wardrobe staple for many women, purely because of how convenient they are. You can wear them to work or social occasions, covering up your legs and generally feeling more professional.

But here’s the problem: tights don’t give you the edge that you crave. They’re very much a practical and sensible choice - not something that a young maverick would necessarily choose for herself.

Don’t Wear Extremely Long Hair

Having long, flowing locks is absolutely fine. But wearing your hair super long after the age of about forty doesn’t work.

By that age, it starts to get thinner and more scraggly. And it ultimately looks a little thinned out.

That’s why women going for an edgy look at around that age typically choose pixie haircuts. These help to maintain volume while invoking plenty of sharp angles and rebellion.

You can also avoid “flatness” by adding various layers to your hair, helping it to stand proud of your scalp, giving it a little volume. Plenty of women have tried this and pulled it off, including Demi Moore and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Avoid Cartoon Eyebrows

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As you get older, you want to make sure that your eyebrows retain their signature look. But sometimes, you can take this a little too far, and they wind up looking cartoonish.

Usually, the problem is choosing the wrong too. Don’t reach straight for the brow pencil. Instead, see how much of your natural brows you can grow out before enhancing them. And remember to go softly. You don’t want large chunks of graphite falling off mid-conversation.

Wear New Lip Colors

Lipstick trends changed enormously over the course of the last century. We no longer live in a world where red is the go-to pucker.

Now the style is for nude or gloss.

If you want to do something a little bolder, then you can choose a darker lipstick, but always ensure that it matches your skin tone. If you alter the shade too much, it’ll clash with the rest of your complexion, and you’ll wind up regretting it.

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