This is part one of a four-part series with anti-aging: Anti Aging – yesterday, today and tomorrow. Look for a new part every week.

The desire to remain youthful has been around for thousands of years. Cleopatra bathed in donkey’s milk and used makeup to improve her already legendary beauty.

The quest for prolonged youth continued into the middle ages. At the Court of the King Louis XIV, face powder was coated thickly and a bath was considered detrimental to beauty. Accounts tell us that Versailles stank and members of the Court looked more like the walking dead.

But though the success of these early anti-aging methods is doubtful, the desire for a youthful appearance has caused people to be increasingly preoccupied with the question of what can be done to halt the effects of aging. This preoccupation, in modern times, has developed into an industry. Today, anti-aging products include a variety of natural and chemical products; all are aimed at erasing the traces of years already lived.

Despite all the new means and methods, the determination must be made that even the most expensive treatment ultimately will not stop the natural process of aging. When we finally accept the effects of time, we may come to realize that those effects also include valuable qualities, such as insight and understanding.

When the focus rests less on erasing the effects of a long life, each new wrinkle takes on significance and is less a testimonial of age than of a life filled with experience and wisdom.

Even Brigitte Bardot once said: “I am proud of the wrinkles. They are the life in my face.”

Read the other parts of this serie:

Part 1: Anti Aging – yesterday and today
Part 2: Anti-aging and cosmetics
Part 3: Cosmetic Surgery as an Anti-Aging Method
Part 4: Anti-Aging Products for Men

Picture © Vladislav Gansovsky – Fotolia.com