As you look in the mirror every morning you can't help noticing that you are no longer the young sprout you once were. Regardless of age or sex, we can always look back in memory to a time when skin was a little tauter, wrinkles didn't exist, we were filled with the flush of youth.
As our society ages, more of us are searching to cling that little bit longer to youth. And these days there are plenty of cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies happy to help you try.
In every pharmacy now there are displays of "anti-wrinkle treatments"; plastic surgeons have become high street shop fronts; botox bars jostle the Boost bars.
Soon to follow will be a product called LaViv. It takes cells called fibroblasts from behind the patient's ear. These are cultured for three months to grow tens of millions of new cells, which are re-injected into the patient through three sessions at five-week intervals.
The treatment is said to be particularly effective against "laughter lines" and less plastic than botox. However, treatment can cost up to $3000, and is quoted to last six months. Then add the cost of a trip to LA - as yet it is not available in Australia.
A few years ago there was Isolagen, a treatment where patients were injected with collagen-producing cells. This was hailed for a time as the answer to the wrinkle problem - but then America's Food and Drugs Administration pushed it off the market because there was no clinical evidence that it was safe.
Many of the new products use scientific discoveries that combine chemicals with the traditional lotions and creams, to the degree that they are attracting a new name: "cosmeceuticals".
This in turn is causing some confusion on the administrative side. In recent years the Therapeutic Goods Administration has classified cosmetics as industrial chemicals and the government has passed their management over to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification Assessment Scheme (NICNAS).
An example that is currently causing some controversy is the use of extremely small particles which have attracted the marketing name of "nanotechnology".
The problem is these chemicals are so small that they pass right through the body's normal barriers and no-one is sure what the long term effects may be. In America the drug administration is researching metal oxides used in cosmetics in case they become toxic when exposed to sunlight.
However nothing is dampening Australians' willingness to spend on beauty. IBISWorld estimates that we will spend $7 billion on beauty this year, $313 a person. Which is nearly 20% up on last year.
This also includes more regular facials, hair removals, cosmetic procedures, time at the hairdresser and the gym.
So definitely the generation that still rocks on stage as the Rolling Stones or next week's visit by John Paul Young, is refusing to accept that wrinkles and sags are a necessary price for being alive.
Pam Abeling, former Australian managing director of beauty consultants Always In Style sums it up: "It's been years since I've used a cream that's not "anti-ageing". I'm never sure whether or not something is working. But at the same time I don't want to stop using it in case it does."
She sums up the power of the anti-ageing message: "It gets every woman where she lives."
The men aren't far behind.
ray@ebeatty.com
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com
