Why do some people age beautifully?: A speculation

Why do some people age beautifully?

An Instagram survey

Disclaimer: I believe that everyone is beautiful in their own way. I would be using words like 'more beautiful' or 'better looking' in this post, however, those do not refer to comparisons between different people. They are only used in the context of comparing the appearances during the youth and the older age of the same individual.

Background

Have you noticed that older people have longer nose and ears? Did you know that our nose and ears never stop growing? 

Well, that is not exactly true. Our skin has a layered structure, with top layer (that we can see) called as epidermis, and the layer beneath it, called as dermis. Collagen is a structural protein that holds epidermis and dermis together. As we age, the collagen between the 2 layers breaks-down leading to sagging [1]. One can imagine that if the link between the two layers breaks, then the layers can slip over each other since there is nothing holding them together. Such a slip occurs in areas, where the skin can move under gravity, like the nose and the ears. (In interest of not spreading misinformation, I must highlight that we do not loose all the collagen as we age; it just decreases in quantity).

So, as we age, the ears and the nose do not really 'grow', but still increase in length due to sagging.

Now, I am sure that we all can list at-least a few people or celebrities, who look(ed) more beautiful in their older age. What changes as one goes from youth to old age:

1. Loosening of skin, wrinkles, etc

We can safely assume that this does not contribute to enhancing the appearance

2. Cosmetic surgeries, in case of celebrities 

This is intended to enhance looks. This works in some cases. (However, I can think of more number of celebrities' cosmetic surgery fails than successes, but never mind 😁. That might be because fails are reported more in popular media than successes)

3. Increase in length of nose, and ears 

I believe, this can lead to enhancement in appearance in some cases. For example, consider a person with facial attributes such that a longer nose better suits his/her/their face. This person would probably look better in older age since the nose would become longer.

Some actors known to have aged well. Left: young, Right: Older

My hypothesis and the Instagram survey

I wondered if,

 the people who appear more beautiful after they get old is because, longer nose suits their faces better.

In order to test this, I did a survey on my Instagram in the following way - 

1. I looked at a couple of articles in popular media and selected 5 celebrities who are known to have aged well, for this survey. 

2. For each of the five celebrities, I got a picture from their young age. Lets refer to this set of five pictures as 'N'.

3. I made a copy of all of the 5 pictures in N. Using an app, I elongated the nose in each of these copies. Lets refer to these 5 pictures with elongated nose as 'N++'. Now, for each celebrity, I had 2 pictures, one in N and one in N++. 

4. I, then, added an image of one more celebrity to both the sets, N and N++ such that both the sets now had 6 images. However, the nose manipulation was not done in this 6th image, such that this image in N and N++ was exactly the same.

5. I formed 2 groups among my contacts on Instagram. Lets represent the 2 groups as G1, and G2.

6. I asked people in G1 to rate the images in set N, while I asked the people in G2 to rate the images in N++, based on attractiveness/pleasantness of the pictures. The 6th image, which was same between N and N++ allowed to compare the overall rating level of G1 and G2 (This is necessary to eliminate any differences in ratings that might arise purely due to one group consisting of more stringent raters than other). Responses were received from 11 people in G1 and 16 people in G2.

I expected that if the longer nose indeed suited the celebrities better, then for a particular celebrity, I would get better rating for his/her picture in N++ than the picture in N. 

Following is what I found:

Here, I quantified the results from Instagram rating scales by finding the relative length of rating bar, with respect to maximum possible length of the bar.

Quantification of the rating

Comparing the ratings of both the groups for the image that was unchanged between both. G2 were more stringent raters.

Ratings (after adjusting for differences in rating tendencies between both the groups):

Conclusion: The pictures with longer nose led to greater rating for 4 out of 5 celebrities. This survey and related analyses seem to support the idea that the people who appear more beautiful in older age are the ones for whom long nose better suits the face. The results should only be read as 'results of a fun survey on Instagram' and should only be taken very seriously. In other words, this is not thorough research study. If this was to be studied properly, sample (responders) would be selected randomly, the survey would be in a more serious setting (and not on Instagram), and the results would be tested for significance. Results of a research study like this would evaluate the question with more rigor and the results would be more reliable.

Acknowledgement: 

I would like to thank my friends and connections on Instagram who participated in the survey.

References:

1. Ganceviciene R, Liakou AI, Theodoridis A, Makrantonaki E, Zouboulis CC. Skin anti-aging strategies. Dermatoendocrinol. 2012;4(3):308-319. doi:10.4161/derm.22804

2. Popular media articles: https://brightside.me/inspiration-girls-stuff/20-famous-beautiful-women-who-have-aged-gracefully-794687/ , https://brightside.me/wonder-people/20-famous-men-who-age-like-good-wine-794676/