Twenty-year-olds are being used to sell anti-ageing creams now

People are kicking up a stink about Dior’s latest spokesperson, and it’s not because they don’t like Cara Delevingne. It’s because she’s 25.

Now I’m not one to be ageist, but I’m troubled by the fact that a beauty brand of Dior’s size has chosen a 25-year-old to front their new anti-ageing campaign.

I’m troubled because there are so many excellent and incredibly worthy older women who would do an equally fantastic job at spruiking whatever new ‘cure for time' they have now.

Plenty of women in the beauty and entertainment worlds have lamented how difficult it can be to secure jobs past a certain age. Meryl Streep famously said, “I thought my career was over starting at 38,” because she didn’t think there was a place for middle aged women in Hollywood.

And it’s not hard to see why when Angelina Jolie was cast as Colin Farrell’s mum in the action movie Alexander, despite only being 11-months older than him. Meanwhile Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence have played lovers in five different movies since 2012, even though he's 16 years her senior.

Fortunately, times are (slowly) changing, and we’re seeing more and more women playing characters their own age - not to mention the wave of silver-haired models that are starting to grace our catwalks.

But the fact still remains that Dior aren’t alone in giving roles that seem specifically built for older women, to people decades younger. Here in Australia, Olay have had 26-year-old Jesinta Franklin as their Total Effects spokesperson for over a year.

In her latest television ad, she says the product “fights the seven signs of ageing to keep my skin looking young and radiant.”

“Age won’t stop me,” she says, “I have Olay.”

Again, Jesinta is lovely and there’s nothing wrong with Olay’s products, but it does feel like a stretch.

I find it particularly hard to swallow because Dior and Olay are part of a much larger industry that makes money off women’s insecurities and actively promotes the idea that a woman’s appearance affects her value in society.

Dior’s new product is designed to ‘delay the first signs of ageing’, but why do we care?

Why do women need to fight the seven signs of ageing? Why can’t we just let nature take its place and not be made to feel ashamed of it?

And where are the anti-ageing products targeted at men? A quick look at Olay’s website shows that of the ten different Total Effects products currently for sale in Australia, none of them are marketed to men.

Of the 18 products listed in the ‘age-defying’ section of Dior’s skincare page – you guessed it, zero are specifically sold to men.

All we can reasonably assume is that these brands are hungry for larger profit margins. They’re trying to expand their market by making young women believe they need to start using anti-ageing creams in their 20s.

I’m in my 20s and have used both Olay and Dior products over the years – but I'm not buying this.

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