The Anti-Aging Anti-Truths

This afternoon, I was receiving a syringe of hyaluronic filler in my fucking eyeball orbitals, because the sands of time have hollowed them out as is often the case with Central/Western Asian women as they age, chatting with my wonderful once-ER-nurse-now-face-improver, Heidi, about how when all of the collagen supplements and turmeric lattes stop working, even the savviest of wellness folks end up in the procedure room, forfeiting the fight against aging and showing gravity good sportsmanship by outsmarting it with filler. I told Heidi that I’m thinking about taking this publication in a podcast direction, but instead of interviewing douche bags with green powder brands, interviewing people who will also yell at you about what is and isn’t real and true. One of the first people I’d invite would be Heidi, whose brilliant knowledge of human anatomy, as well as what happens to it as the tectonic plates of youth shift around our faces, can maybe once and for all convince the masses that there is no such thing as anti - aging - just a sliding income scale of how to best disguise it with everything from make-up, to peeling your skin off, to facial balancing fillers, nerve arresting botox, and of course, a very scary facelift.

What concerns me the most about the industrial aging complex is that most of the products we see have to do with what we look like. My mother, the world’s most beautiful woman as I remember, went fully grey at the tender age of 28. She stopped dying her hair when I was a kid, and has moved through the world with grey hair, zero makeup, zero retinol, wrinkle filler, plastic surgery, anything, ever since. Truly, no matter how hard I try, I cannot imagine a more stunning face. Some words that make my skin crawl in this world include “glow,” although I cringe every time a face cream made out of basically plastic and Orbeez gets marketed to us by a famous actress with like, four pontoon boats’ worth of work as “age-defying.” The unfortunate nature of these products is that, well, they market to our vainest self - I picture the Evil Witch from Snow White walking around Whole Foods with an iced matcha, browsing $6 2oz shots with “IMMUNITY”, “ENERGY”, “DIGESTION”, and snatching the one marked “BEAUTY” like this little stupid bottle of extraneous plastic contains the antidote to the inevitable: we will all be older at the end of this read than we were at the beginning, and if you think anything you drink, eat, or inject into your body will stop that, perhaps it’s time for some brain supporting nootropics.

Any Buddhist will tell you, including this one - the ego is a liar hired by your personality to keep you from your soul. I suppose we can add a line here - the ego will also spend so much time trying to beat the visible signs of a life well lived that it will ignore the actually damaging accumulations our body holds on to as the world continues to spin. Bone density? Systemic dehydration? Deteriorating gut lining? Bone-dry joints due to years of poor diet? Nah, not on the label. Glowing skin though? Every time.

It shocks me that people are more willing to guzzle guava flavored collagen and believe it will make their wrinkles go away than wear sunscreen consistently and get their blood work done on a routine basis. Surely, if the secret to defying death could be contained in a plastic jug you bought on Amazon, the world would be overrun with baby skinned vampires - but it’s not. So why do you keep buying it?

I have lived my life hard and fast, and as we know, the body keeps the score. As my beloved Heidi explained to me today, the natural order of things for many is the migration of our facial fat pads downward, in a race with our breasts and foot arches to get to hell the fastest (or so I assume). I would be lying to you if I said I hadn’t tried my fair share of flax seed masks and gua sha massages before landing on just balancing out what’s there with filler, and guess what? Just like after any other filler I’ve had, I look like myself, but after a software update - and it makes me feel good.

I had to come to a somber truth while driving home today, checking myself out in the mirror every few minutes to make sure I was, in fact, still hot - if I had spent the money and time I spent over the years on retinol, hibiscus tea, bullshit supplements, facials, filler, and the like - on things like my actual health - I’d probably be in a much better place right now. And while I can, thankfully, afford to do whatever I want to make up for it on the surface - the excruciating ankle, knee, and back pain from just not taking care of myself at all for so long reminds me that time does keep going, with our without me.

So is this article just a sad soliloquy about how we’re all fucked anyway? I mean, usually, yes, but I also want to give you some options for how to make up some of the lost time - and what not to waste your money on.

If you find yourself often buying or wanting to buy products that advertise glowy skin, skip the skin-specific collagen - especially when it’s in the form of a serum or lotion. That’s… just a lie - collagen is not absorbed through your skin. There is also little evidence that drinking it will do a whole lot for your skin. You cannot absorb it through your gut and move it to your skin - that doesn’t work - and the reasons for collagen depletion are generally time, sun, smoking, and drinking. If you’re going to take a collagen, take a Type II for your joints - and for your skin, try drinking water. No, like, literally, you’re probably dehydrated. And if you’re in fact deficient in the minerals and compounds that make your joints healthy, you should treat that with knowledge - whether it’s consuming more collagen stimulating foods, taking a mega dose of curcumin, hot sauna and cold plunging, or exploring the big wide world of Rick Simpson Oil (if you know, you know).

You may also find that some Kardashian or other demonic apparition has convinced you to buy a beauty gummy, or you find yourself constantly drinking “beauty tea.” Listen now and listen good. Your skin is a direct indicator of what is happening inside of your body. Why does hibiscus tea lead to clearer skin? Because it’s a diuretic. Why does ginger and turmeric often clear up congested skin? Because they stimulate your digestive system. You need to support your body in constantly moving inputs into outputs - that means your lymphatic system, your urinary tract, and your digestion - this is something we should all do naturally, but some of us disrupt those systems with alcohol, highly processed food, and chronic stress. Also, as you may recall from up above - collagen decreases with age. Meaning - wrinkles are literally supposed to happen - it’s the way our bodies were designed, and to me, they provide a rich and vibrant history of the life we’ve lived. I love them.

Never, ever, ever, ever, fucking ever, do a cleanse. You can read the green powders article for more information there, but I assure you that shitting out halfway digested foods and tickling your colon with an irritant will cause you more harm than good, every single time.

Check your vitamins. No, like, check all of your vitamins, minerals and amino acids. My favorite blood test is a CMA or cellular micronutrient assay - it’s what allowed my doctor to tie my low arginine and glycine to glyphosate poisoning. She also reframed how to read a blood test for me in a big way - instead of reading it as things you don’t get enough of, consider it a map to what you’re using the most of. As we age, our bodies change - most importantly internally - and getting these types of tests, while not as cheap as a ginger shot - increase your chances of catching problems before they become life shortening. Please, please, please, get your blood tested.

Support your brain. You can be beautiful and still have dementia - and the brain rotting doom scrolling, lack of vitamin D, dehydration and utter Omega 3-6-9 deficiency most of this country experiences is making everybody a little, well, dumber. You don’t need to eat expensive mushrooms to support your brain - a $3 tin of sardines a few times a week, or a good, lead free chlorella / spirulina supplement is a really great place to start.

Men, get a prostate exam. Get a colonoscopy. Get your hormones tested. Women, get breast exams, pap smears, thyroid tests, ask your doctor about bone density and osteoporosis. Calcium deficiency is rampant in the oat milk generation, and colon cancer is becoming more and more common in young folks - especially in the United States - because eating trash will kill you.

Quit fucking drinking. I know that one will bother you, but in the quest for being healthier, longer - alcohol is poison to every single system in your body - and it absolutely makes you look older, faster, as it destroys the elasticity of your skin, overloads your detox pathways and generally puts a knock in your engine.

Incorporate movement - more movement - into your life. I am finally physically able to return to my favorite location on Earth - the squat rack - and I am committed to incorporating weight training back into my life to protect my bones from turning to dust. Objects in motion stay in motion - hot girl walk, yoga, pilates, I will reserve my jokes about CrossFit here because everybody knows I’m just bitter about my lack of box jump abilities.

Experience joy. There is power in accessing your inner child and allowing them to play - there is also more to life than sharing small plates and if you haven’t been to a zoo, a playground, even somewhere in the canopy of a tree for a while - I’d recommend it. Laughter, quite literally, is the best medicine for reconnecting with the parts of us we want to live forever.

In short, if it’s brighter skin you’re after, drink more water and eat more fiber. If it’s stronger hair or nails, get your bloodwork tested before buying Nutrafol or whatever horrible supplement the internet convinces you to buy (by the way, Nutrafol is a formulation for hypothyroid women, while most women have never had their thyroid tested. If you do not have an underactive thyroid, or worse, if you have an overactive thyroid, and you start taking hypothyroid supplementation, you will hurt yourself. Significantly. Stop it.) If you want to keep your joints from aching and stay in motion longer, get your CMA, identify the source of brittleness or inflammation, and treat it with knowledge, not the first collagen supplement you recognize from TikTok. And if you have wrinkles that retinol can’t touch and a desire to delete a few years out of your twenties in exchange for slightly more eternal youth, I hate to tell you this, but it might be time to make an appointment for some filler. I know a gal.

Aging is, all at once, the most terrifying and the most beautiful experience I can think of. To me, it feels like a backpacking trip through the back country on a loop, but with every restart one more essential piece of gear you didn’t have before. We must liberate ourselves from the shame and self hatred that beauty, wellness, and marketing companies impose on us every single day by filling our media streams with people who don’t look like people. You can, always, do a bit of both - and if getting a beauty procedure, like pumping goo through a needle into your tear troughs - makes you like your face more, fucking do it! Just don’t let that process overshadow the real health it takes to stay mobile, strong, and well for longer.

When I think about my favorite portion of my partner’s face, I see the wrinkles ‘round his eyes from a life spent laughing. I wish I had more, but I’m catching up.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and as always, I hope this article led you to cancelling one more auto-ship of shit you don’t need to spend money on. I love connecting with this rapidly growing audience outside of substack, so if you like pit bulls, weird memes and seeing what early 2000s Southern rap song I may be listening to at the moment, please connect via instagram via username yarrow_patch - I love chatting with you all.

In health (and aging humanly, not gracefully),

Anna