Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst Dies at 30

Poor Cheslie felt that turning 30 would mean she would become insignificant. In this culture, to age is to be erased — to be deemed irrelevant, disappear from magazine covers and popular films. Just look at the fate of many aging actresses. (The studios made a big mistake there.)

When I heard the news about Cheslie, I was devastated that any young woman would feel this way, but I know she was not alone. Trying to look younger is an age old concept that saw its true beginning in the 1930’s and 1940’s when Palmolive ran a series of bluntly shaming ads in magazines like Good Housekeeping. The soap company invented the problem of “ ‘middle-age’ skin,” a condition it claimed could afflict women as young as 22, then blamed it for all kinds of romantic disappointments, from “girls with empty date books” to the wife who “loses love.” (New York Times Magazine)

Later Madison Avenue Ad-men (Picture Don Draper) went even further when they realized “Anti-Aging” could sell a lot more beauty products. And so preventing aging any means became the mantra of many women.

“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows & the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years.”
– Audrey Hepburn