Slow ageing, according to Susan Smit

By Susan Smit, novelist and devoted Abloom user.

I’m at that in-between age where I look sixty in the morning, fifty in the afternoon and forty in the evening (in the right light). It’s okay; I go with it without putting up much resistance. I still make myself look as lovely as I can; I don’t see that as fighting it. I will always enjoy my beauty rituals, morning and evening. A matter of upbringing, I think: I have never seen my mother, now in her eighties, without make-up and blow-dried hair.

Skincare as heritage preservation

I see my skincare routine as maintenance that, much like the old Amsterdam house I live in, becomes more intensive over time. An older friend jokingly calls her skincare “heritage preservation”, and that’s the direction I’m heading in too. It really is a form of care: caring for your dear body that carries you through each day, for that expressive face that is yours. Every day, I apply my creams with love, never as punishment. And I see how my skin responds.

The power of slow ageing

When it comes to skincare, I believe in the power of plants, herbs and flowers; I have used the entire Abloom range almost religiously for years. They use a term I find both appealing and realistic: slow ageing. Because ageing is a fact, and anti-ageing is propaganda. You can’t walk into a forest and announce that you’re going to make it “anti-season”, either. Autumn will come, whether you like it or not. But slowing the visible process a little and keeping your skin radiant and healthy is possible.

The value of growing older

There is nothing wrong with your face as it ages. Nothing needs to be “fixed”. The lines on your face are a perfectly natural and healthy result of decades of laughing, crying, thinking, singing, talking, cheering and grieving. Of being alive. You don’t lose strength and worth as you grow older; you gain them. I only have to look at my beautiful mother to know that there is still so much to look forward to.

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