How do we age gracefully when we're not you, George?

Article in today's Daily Telegraph..........


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It’s hard to grow old gracefully when you’re not George Clooney

Celebrity's leading man may not need any touch-ups, but the rest of us could do with a helping hand

Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney offered hope to millions of middle-aged mortals this week when he declared that the best way for a man to age is not to fight the ageing process, but to embrace it.

“I think for all of us, you have to come to terms with getting older and not trying to fight it,” he said on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour. “I’m a big believer in the idea that you can’t try to look younger. You just have to look the best you can at the age you are and not worry about it.”
Clooney, 54, also denied he had ever been tempted to go under the surgeon’s knife, nor dye his trademark grey hair.
“For me, it’s never been an issue or an option,” he said. “I don’t think it would make much sense, quite honestly. I’ve seen it happen and particularly on men I don’t think it really works. I think it actually makes you look older.”
Of course, all of this is easy for genetically blessed Clooney to say. Last year, the 54-year-old sex machine saw off Johnny Depp and Daniel Craig to be voted the world’s top Man Ageing Gracefully.
Which is fine if, like Clooney, you mature like a fine wine. But what if – like the rest of us – you mature more like a ripe cheese?
Unlike George, we might think about cheating. But what can – or should – an ageing man do to turn back the clock?

The easiest thing to fix is grey hair – and, at just £8 off eBay, Just For Men Auto Stop is the nation’s favourite quick-fix for both heads and, increasingly, beards, too. According to the company’s research, one in seven British men have considered having a go at colouring their grey hairs.
The nation, me included, dabbled with beard dye after David Beckham was outed last June when he returned from his Into The Unknown motorcycle trip to deepest Amazon sporting salt and pepper stubble, only for it to be dyed a rich chestnut hue the day after he got back to civilisation.

When dyeing, the trick is – and I speak from bitter experience – not to go for jet-black, even if you have dark hair. You’ll end up looking like Dr Spock. Rather, go for the lightest shade you can, and leave it in for just a few minutes: you only want to soften your grey, not attempt cover it.
And never be tempted to dye your eyebrows, as I once did. It prompted my 5-year-old son to say: “Daddy, you look weird.” Remember: kids say what they see, adults just lie and mock you behind your back.
What about plastic surgery? I don’t know about you, but the first thing I think when a celebrity says “never get plastic surgery” is “they’ve recently had plastic surgery”. It stinks of a classic double-bluff.

Except when Clooney says it. When asked in 2013 if he’d had his eyes done (it was the talk of the trashy mags at the time), Clooney teased a reporter: “I never fixed my eyes, but I spent more money to stretch the skin of my testicles. I did not like the wrinkles. It’s a new technique, many people in Hollywood have done it. It’s called ‘ball ironing’…”
Such is Clooney’s power that this off-the-cuff remark sparked a boom (among overly-rich masochists) for the “male laser lift”, a £700 procedure that removes hair, erases wrinkles and skin tags and eradicates discoloration from ingrown hairs.
Back in the real world, the tide is turning against male plastic surgery procedures. According to the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons, the number of “male procedures” fell 15 per cent last 2014.
Are men being put off by the surgical mistakes of celebrities and other dabblers? A wealthy friend of mine had his droopy eyelids lifted, and for a month it looked like he’d been electrocuted or had accidentally sat on a large root vegetable.

However, an increasing number of non-surgical procedures are aimed at men. I once underwent the M.E.L.T, a £1,000 “electric liposuction” procedure that claims to melt the fat away – from your midriff, love handles, moobs and even your face.

During six sessions, over a month, I had my midriff zapped by radio and magnetic waves, ultrasound and light beams – and lost two inches off my waist. But I was also following a diet and exercise plan, so my inner cynic tells me it was healthy living, rather than hi-tech probing, that did the trick.

A good smile can take years off a man, and teeth whitening is cheap and easy. Over-the-counter kits are available for around a tenner, although the ill-fitting rubber tray you wear to apply the stuff can make you drool like a hungry labrador – a look your wife may never forget or forgive.
Then there’s the final taboo: male make-up. Yes, it exists: there are even dedicated men-only products from Clinique and Tom Ford. But manscara and guyliner are a touch too much for most men, me included. Instead, I used to pinch the missus’s YSL Touche Eclat, an under-eye concealer that hides black bags. I used to buy it for her, just so I could felch it myself. Then after a week, I realised what I was doing was deeply tragic, and stopped.
Maybe George Clooney’s anti-regime is best after all – especially as it’s completely free. After all, if doing nothing is good enough for him, surely it’s good enough for the rest of us.

Eonline tonight:

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George Clooney Will Stay Gray, Thank You: Dyeing Your Hair or Having Plastic Surgery Makes Men Look Older


Seriously, why mess with silver-fox perfection?
But still, George Clooney fields questions about why he doesn't dye his hair, which has been gray for over a decade now. And his answer, like so many of his answers, makes sense.
"Not today, I'm not," the Tomorrowland star actually joked right off the bat when asked about the process of "aging gracefully."
"I will say that there's nothing fun—and I know for actresses it's infinitely worse because of public perception based on nothing except studios not hiring them and those sorts of things—but I think for all of us, you have to come to terms with getting older and not trying to fight it," Clooney told the BBC's Radio 4 earlier this month.

"You have a couple of options, which is get older or die," he chuckled, "and so you have to get used to the idea that your roles in films and who you are and how you're perceived is going to change. That'll disappoint people at times but you just go with it."
Asked if he was at all tempted to dye his hair or have plastic surgery, Clooney said, "Clearly, I haven't. For me, it isn't an issue or an option. I don't think it would make much sense, quite honestly...I've seen it happen and...particularly on men, I don't think it really works well. I actually think it makes you look older."

"I'm a big believer in the idea that you can't try to look younger," he added. "You just have to try to look the best you can at the age you are and not worry about it."
The 54-year-old actor's 37-year-old wife, Amal Clooney, certainly seems satisfied with her hubby as is.
"I don't think of us as a power couple because I also don't know what that means," Clooney also told Radio 4. "Bill and Hillary seems to be a power couple. I think we're just a couple with great interest in the human condition."

Well said George