I love my new nosering, but it looks like I'm trying not to look 36. Do you do anything to make yourself look a certain age, older or younger than you are?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), August 28, 2000

Answers

I have a 10 gauge septum piercing and not-your-traditional-earrings in my pierced ears (a 6g talon in one ear and a 12g horseshoe in the other). No, I'm not about to turn 30, not me, nope. ::groan:: Maybe we'll start a trend, Kymm: facial piercings as perpetual youth for the should-be-mature-by-now crowd.

I also often have my hair bleached punk blonde and occasionally coat it with (temporary--- I have a job!!) blue stuff so I kinda look like I never got over 1983 or like I really am ten years younger than my age.

-- Tynan (ty@power-lines.com), August 28, 2000.

Well, I'm 34 and I like to dress like these hip young chicks that abound in L.A. At least, as much as I can without looking like my big ol' body is being stuffed in a sausage casing. I'll turn to my baby sister (who's 30 now, yikes!) and ask for assurance that I look fine and don't look like a woman in her mid-30s trying to reclaim her lost youth. She assures me that I look good, and I'm pretty sure she's not just trying to be nice (Sis is far hipper, and tinier, than I am, and she'd tell me if my clothes looked like crap on me).

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), August 28, 2000.

I think that hanging with a (mostly) younger crowd, in a dimly lit room (the Century ballroom) makes people *think* I'm younger than I am, if they ever consider the matter at all. But I don't try to look younger or older.

Staying out of the sun helps, too!

I remember thinking that my long hair would have to go when I reached a "certain age", when I was in my early twenties. Since then, it's gone, then come back again!

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anita Rowland (anitar@halcyon.com), August 28, 2000.

Well, I'm 39, and I grow one heck of a nice beard. I've always looked a few years older with the beard than without it. I went a few years without the beard and the last time I grew one, it came in about half gray. I let it grow out into a mild patriarch length, just because I freaking hate shaving.

One day at work, I was talking about exercise with some people who didn't remember what I looked like without the beard. I was describing how much I exercised, with karate classes, sword classes, and weight training. They asked how old I was, and just to test, I said 53. I expected to hear "no way! You can't be 53!" and instead I heard "Wow, that's great that you can do that much exercise at your age."

Dang.

Shaved the next day. I don't mind looking a bit older with a beard, but not 15 years! Besides, I had a job interview coming up. Yeah, that's the real reason I shaved, uh-huh. I finally get some gray in my beard so I can look mature, distinguished and experienced rather than look like a hippie, and I shave it off because it makes me look too old.

-- Colin (ethilrist@prodigy.net), August 28, 2000.

I wear very light foundation on the inner corners of my eyes, well blended. It opens up the eyes enormously. I also wear glitter, more and more frequently. I also own Play-Do. In my cubicle. At work. tango

-- tango (tango@stratos.net), August 28, 2000.

I dyed my hair cherry chocolate brown (that's the hairdresser (sylist, darling! name for the colour. Mmm, sounds edible..)

I started going silver (OK, grey dammit!) at 14, and eventually my fringe (=bangs) was completely that colour, with the back being still dark brown. People would ask me where I got my hair blonde streaked. (me? A blonde? I look jaundiced, I know, as I had one stip next to my face bleached prior to dying it fire-engine red in the 80's)

I only dyed it back to all one colour when I stopped getting asked where it was streaked, and started being mistaken for the mother of my 29 year old sister and 38 year old husband. I'm 34 and was pretty offended at that!

-- Amanda Page (amanda@amandasprecipice.com), August 28, 2000.

Age is a state of mind... as long as I don't pass a mirror. I cut, dye, bleach, and grown my hair constantly, not in that particular order. I stopped wearing makeup, it makes the wrinkles show up more, and I wear clothes that look nothing like my "aged peers." As I said, I am fine as long as I avoid mirrors, oh yes... I am only seen with younger men that helps too.

-- Alice (alice@3harpiesltd.com), August 28, 2000.

I am way more disturbed by little girls dressing like 20-year-old women of loose morals than I am by people wearing things meant for the younger set. The only time I think of adults as dressing out of their age range is when older women dress like teenagers, *in the clothes that were cool when they were teenagers*. In my generation, that means things such as acid-wash minis and spike heels with anklets.

Although I haven't seen the nosering in question, I'm sure it looks fine as long as you're not pairing it with scads of other East-Asian- trendy things, like sari-patterned apron tops, sarongs, and zori sandals all worn at the same time.

Colin, that "just to test" thing never works out. A few years ago on my birthday -- I think I was 28 -- I told a group of acquaintences that it was my birthday, and when one asked how old I was, I said "Thirty- five," and was shocked, SHOCKED, not to be met with a hue and cry of protest. Unfortunately, I had no beard to shave off. (Unfortunately? Well, you see what I mean.) I think my appearance varies a lot depending on how much sleep I've had and how much stress I'm under. When I got my navel piercing I was actually carded. I told them I also had a note from my mom if they needed it.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), August 29, 2000.

I keep my hair long, too. My mother is always on my case to cut it and do other things to "act my age" (settle down, stop being a student, stop traveling around the country with a tent and a backpack, buy a house in the suburbs, have kids). I want to finish my degree, of course, but the the rest of it? No way in hell! I think that's what keeps my husband and me looking as if we're only 27 or so. (I won't tell you my real age. I'm, frankly, not sure it's my real age. My sister, who did all of the above and is five years younger than me, looks much older.)

-- Catriona (catri696@purpleturtle.com), August 29, 2000.

Ooh, Catriona, I too intend to have long hair until the day I die. I think it looks so defiantly sensual when older women wear flowing waves of iron-grey or snow-white hair down past their shoulders.

To me, dressing your age simply means not wearing anything with Disney/ Looney Toons characters on it when one is over age 12.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), August 29, 2000.

A wear a blue jean jumper with Winnie the Pooh on it.

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), August 29, 2000.

Working for Disney, I can't get away from stuff with Disney characters on it. However, it's mainly t-shirts and I only wear t-shirts when I'm exercising (I hate the standard t-shirt collar).

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), August 31, 2000.

I am blessed, thats the truth. Three days after my fortieth B'day I got ID'ed at a liquor store by a girl about the same age as my daughter. All summer I have been swimming about four times a week and I have beeen charged each and every time as a youth. My hair is long,black with no grey yet, I have an earing. I don't know that I dress really young but I live in cargo shorts and t-shirts. Men shave, best exfolient in the world, so our skin does not show age to badly. I am North American Native so I can't grow a beard if I try, body wise pretty much hairless as well, so I figure I will look like I am 18 till one day I wake up and look like one of those apple face dolls.

-- Daniel (truth60@yahoo.com), August 31, 2000.

Dear Kymm:

I am 35 and I too wear a nosering! I also wear my hair in dreadlocks. I love the look of the nosering and it makes me feel great! I have been told it makes me look younger.

Good Luck, zandra

-- zandra burns (zandra_art@yahoo.com), November 03, 2000.

Well I Guess that I have almost driven myself crazy trying to eternally remain 27 .But at 34 I can still turn a few heads, Ihave even managed to land myself in the fine predicament of having my 3 child by a younger(12yrs.)man,who is continually being persued by every gutter slut in our small town, we have been together for 3yrs now and I'll be damned if this beats me!

-- Lori Teal (lorian123@hotmail.com), June 05, 2002.