The REAL reason some stars age like fine wine while others… don’t: AMANDA GOFF reveals the generational habit speeding up the clock – and it has everything to do with the year you were born

It’s hard to remember life before… ‘it’ arrived.

It was a simpler time, a better time. It was a time when our brains weren’t completely rotted and we knew what women actually looked like.

We used to laugh in photos – really laugh, even if it gave us double chins. We would live in the moment, without endless interruptions to preen and pose.

And the best part of all: women weren’t actively trying to look exactly the same.

You know what I’m going to say next…

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I’m talking about Instagram. Yes, that app you’ve probably already checked a dozen times before reading this.

It may be hard to remember now, but there was a time before Facetune, filters, filler and fox-eye threads, and whatever the latest buzzy beauty jab is. (Honestly, it’s hard to keep up, even for someone like me, a former beauty editor).

And it was good. Before Instagram, and even during its relatively innocent early days before it became a cultural behemoth, women enjoyed social media and didn’t feel pressured by it.

You didn’t have literal tweens slathering on harsh retinols and posting skincare videos from their pink bedrooms.

‘Get ready with me while I pile on chemicals on my pre-pubescent skin.’ ‘A lot of you have asked about my skincare routine…’ (No, we haven’t actually, and why aren’t you doing your homework?)

If you’re an older millennial, say 35 to 42, you would be part of the lucky generation that made it to your twenties without social media turning every woman into a wannabe beauty influencer.

You wouldn’t have had skincare sold to you before you’d even started your period.

Maybe you’ve had a few tweaks – but only after 30. A touch of Botox. A pinch of subtle filler. Certainly nothing major and certainly nothing before your early thirties.

No surgery, no cheek implants, no duck lips, and definitely no stretching your eyes to make you look like a startled alien – or Bella Hadid.

I’m looking at women in that age bracket, the likes of Today host Sarah Abo, Pilates queen Bernadette Fahey and PR whiz Roxy Jacenko, who have probably (definitely in Roxy’s case) had a few tweaks here and there, but certainly don’t look overdone.

They look years younger than their actual ages while also still resembling their passport photo when you see them in the flesh. These women look vibrant, youthful and real.

But for younger millennials and their Gen Z siblings, it seems to be a different story. 

Now I see a worrying trend when I scroll through pictures of celebs and influencers in their twenties who look like they started ‘tweakments’ the day they turned 18.

I hate to say it, but something is… off when I look at photos of Skye Wheatley, Kylie Jenner, Tammy Hembrow and Indy Clinton – all beloved by young women and girls, by the way. Maybe it’s their waxy smooth foreheads, overly prominent cheeks, plump and over-filled lips, their eyes ever so slanted upwards.

Yes, they turn heads. Yes, their figures are hot. And no, I certainly don’t look as good in activewear as they do with their young, toned bodies.

But one thing I can say for sure: These women look older than their years – certainly older than I did when I was that age.

It’s like they’ve skipped straight past the decade of having naturally youthful skin (the type you can’t buy from a bottle) and landed in that 40-something zone where anti-ageing becomes a necessary fixation.

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong being 40-plus. I’m in my 50s, for God’s sake!

But 40-plus skin belongs on 40-plus women; not 21- or 30-year-olds.

Younger women are ageing differently, and not in a good way. And it’s a very recent development. The fact that older millennials, generally speaking, look better than their generation’s youngest members should be a cause for alarm.

Yes, part of the problem is too much Botox too early. And using harsh skincare too young. Vaping plays a role too.

But the worst offender has to be early exposure to the highly curated ‘perfect world’ of Instagram – the one that emerged when today’s 30-year-olds were teenagers.

The pressure must be relentless. Hint of a line? Inject. Eyes a bit squinty? Scalpel. Lips looking ever so thin? Jab.

There is always going to be a new look or procedure that’s trending – but up close, in real life, it means women are looking more artificial and years older.

I mean, what the hell are these women going to look like in their 40s, when they’ve maxed out every treatment at 24? Joan Rivers would gasp.

When a woman in her 20s decides to inject every wrinkle, thread every brow and plump each lip, what they don’t realise is that they’re robbing themselves of the one thing they possess that older women can only pine for: their youth.

By contrast, women who were born a decade earlier took an entirely different path. I would venture to say most of them made it to their 30th birthday without feeling the prick of a cosmetic needle. Now they’re heading towards 40, they opt for subtle maintenance, treatments that soften rather than resculpt their features. A little anti-ageing here and there, not full-blown face lifts at 25.

Am I being harsh? Perhaps. But just you wait when these young women hit 40 and look 60. It’s a tragedy that treatments once sold as ‘preventative’ now seem to be prematurely ageing a generation.

Before I’m accused of judging other women, I want to share a personal story.

In my early 30s – that’s two decades ago – I became the beauty editor of a glossy magazine and, all of a sudden, PRs started throwing beauty treatments at me left, right and centre.

I’m talking peels, lasers, injectables – you name it.

I had the latest miracle treatment pitched to me on a daily, even hourly, basis. I had my first jab of Botox at 34, practically a geriatric in today’s world of 21-year-olds getting frozen, embalmed, heated and needled for ‘prevention’.

And can I be brutally honest?

The more treatments I had, the more expensive the skincare I layered on, the more make up I wore… the worse I looked. 

I started to look haggard. I noticed more lines. Duller, sallow skin. More breakouts.

It was becoming clear: the more I got jabbed, the older I became. And then I realised that more doesn’t mean better, younger or prettier.

It often means quite the opposite.