I Feel Bad for Feeling Bad About My Neck

When I was 26, I interviewed for a beauty director position at a magazine targeted to a more mature reader. The executive editor thumbed through my portfolio, looked me up and down, and said, “You’re young; how could you possibly anticipate the skincare concerns of a woman in her 40s and 50s?”

Ouch.

I nervously blurted out that I had worked for a teen magazine, and I wasn’t a teen (but I was one once), and that I worked at a magazine for full-figured women and I wasn’t full-figured. But, of course, one’s clothing size doesn’t affect skincare, hair, and makeup trends.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t get that job. But over a decade and a half later, I still think about that editor and her question, especially when I stand in front of the mirror and pull up my neck skin to see what I’d look like with a little nip and tuck.

Well, lady, you were right. Collagen-filled, glowy, 26-year-old me couldn’t possibly imagine how I’d feel about my skin at 43: conflicted.

Do I think my skin looks good? Most days. Am I bothered by my visible signs of aging? Some days. But I’m more bothered by the fact that I’m bothered by it in the first place. Stay with me here. I’ve always fancied myself a feminist. In college, I was a communications major with a concentration in women’s studies. I contemplated a career in academia researching gender roles in media. I had a dogeared copy of Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, FFS. Then, I was offered a job as a beauty editor for a woman’s magazine. 

I’m not exactly a bra-burning feminist. I love makeup and fashion (and bras that lift and separate, thank you), so I took the gig and found out I really enjoyed it. But during my first few years, I often thought, “Ugh. I’m part of the problem. I’m telling women they need to look better! Younger! Sexier!” Or so our cover lines often read.  

I began to make peace with these feelings as I witnessed beauty’s positive psychological effect on women — that outside-in mood boost a simple swipe of lipstick or a good blowout could deliver. Beauty had power, and using it strategically seemed pretty feminist, or at least that’s what I gleaned from Coco Chanel.

Fast forward to my aging skin. A lot has changed in the beauty industry since my 20s. ‘Anti-aging’ is becoming a taboo phrase as terms like age-positive and pro-aging take hold. I fully support the movement and the idea of aging well because we can’t stop the aging process. Plus, I’ve noticed that so many amazing things come with age, especially the IDGAF attitude I didn’t have in my younger years. I’m more comfortable in my skin, and I feel a hell of a lot sexier at 43 than I did at 23 when I struggled with body image.

Now, I want to be that woman who embraces my smile lines and thinks the crinkles around my eyes are cute, but I’m not her. Like Nora Ephron, I also feel bad about my neck. I want devices to tighten it. I want Botox to smooth and soften my expression lines. I want to slow the visible aging process however I can. And then comes the guilt, maybe even shame, for caring about something so superficial.

I took these feelings to Amy Wechsler, MD, a New York City-based dermatologist and psychiatrist who counsels patients on skin and mind issues daily. “But do you really think of these treatments as anti-feminist?” she asked me. As I contemplated my response, Wechsler answered her own question: “Because I think that part of being a feminist is having autonomy of my body,” she said. “I can do anything I choose to do, and as long as I’m making good, healthy choices, no one should get in the way of that.”

Good point.

Wechsler has heard these concerns from her patients, too, and the feelings are more than skin deep. “We often age like one of our family members—a parent, a grandparent, an aunt—and that can be upsetting for some people, making them feel old or even ushering in a sense of mortality.”

Similarly, researchers at Iowa State University recently delved into “aging anxiety” (yes, it’s a thing) via a large-scale, multi-state survey. While aging anxiety encompasses fear of dying, loss of relationships, mobility, and the like, it also includes physical appearance. The survey revealed that women aged 40 to 49 were the most concerned about their appearance compared to men of the same age and older participants. “The 40s is the decade where women tend to see the most dramatic changes, and they get a little panicky,” says Vivian Diller, PhD., a New York City-based psychologist and author of Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change. 

Diller says this decade is when the previous generation started doing drastic things to their faces and faced stiff criticism for it. We now have more noninvasive options to soften an aging face and a bit more acceptance of it as a society, but the push and pull I described to her—wanting to accept my skin as-is and wanting to change it—still exists. “I call it the beauty paradox,” says Diller. “And there’s got to be some middle ground.”

So how do I find it?

It starts with how we talk about aging. As I mentioned, we’re already seeing this shift with the pro-aging movement in skincare and cosmetics, but it goes beyond clever marketing buzzwords on a label. “I don’t know who coined the term ‘aging gracefully,’” says Wechsler. “But it’s more like ‘aging healthfully.’” And it encompasses all our organs. We do things to keep our brain healthy. We stay active and eat well to keep our bodies healthy (side note, that above-mentioned survey found exercise made people feel better about aging). And we do things to keep our skin healthy,” she says. “It’s no different.”

The next step is transparency. Social media has helped lift the stigma of aesthetic treatments. Many women are open and honest about injectables or even cosmetic procedures, which makes the rest of us feel like it’s OK. “I give my patients permission because I’m very open and honest about what I do,” says Wechsler. “I’m all about Botox but preserving facial expression. I use Retin-A and avoid the sun.”

Diller adds that we are a part of the generation that if our neck bothers us, there are all sorts of things we can do for our neck. “And instead of feeling like, what’s wrong with me?” she says. “It’s more like, what can I do to look my best?’” Diller stresses that she likes to use words such as “best” rather than “younger” or “prettier.” Because we all want to look our best—at any age.

And, finally, acceptance. Here’s where time is on our side. It turns out that growing older makes you more accepting of the aging process. “I think the aging process is hardest on women in their 40s and early 50s, but then you reach a point of acceptance, and it just becomes easier,” she says. So maybe that’s J.Lo’s secret? Nonetheless, it is something to look forward to.

As for my neck, I pressed Wechsler for her favorite skin-tightening treatments. Her go-to is Thermage, a radio frequency device that heats collagen fibers so they contract, causing skin on the surface to tighten and stimulating new collagen growth.

So, if you’re looking for me, I’ll be numbing my neck for Thermage, waiting to be J.Lo’s age, and feeling no shame about my wrinkle-softening game.

Want our stories delivered to you? Sign up for our newsletter, then follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook for regular updates and a lot of other silliness.