by
Black Girl With Long Hair
We all have that auntie who is 45 but look like she 32. Or a grandma well into her 70s who looks 50. Now we have the scientific reason why, and it has everything to do with our genes. Olay teamed up with Harvard Medical School Dermatology professor Dr Alexa Kimball to study the skin aging process over the course of women’s lifetimes, from the 20s to the 70s.
The MDE study, which was initiated in 2012, marries genotypic and phenotypic science and examines women in nearly every decade of life – from their 20s to their 70s – and across ethnicities – Caucasian, African, Hispanic and Asian.
And the study conclusively found that black women do, indeed, age at a much slower rate. Any black person could have told them that, but the interesting thing is that it doesn’t just have to do with the melanin in our skin. It goes deeper than that.
In Olay’s Multi-Decade and Ethnicity Study we have found that women of African-American background aged slower than women of Caucasian background as far as skin appearance was concerned. In fact, the aging process seemed to be slowed down by about 10 years. We believe this is not just due to the higher melanin content in their skin which serves as natural UV protection—although it certainly plays a role. We are now studying the exact molecular pathways in dark and light skin more closely to determine what drives this apparently slower skin aging process…
We have definitely seen that women of African-American background aged comparatively slower [that Caucasian women]. The study also revealed twice as many exceptional skin agers in this group—women who looked more than 10 years younger than their real age—than in the Caucasian study group. This does not mean women of African-American background don’t experience visible skin aging, but on average less/ later than lighter skin types.
Two snaps. #blackgirlmagic
Ladies, what are your thoughts?
96 Responses
This article would have caused an uproar if it was the other way around. Proud to be black tho.
I agree. The average black Caribbean, African or African-American looks more than 10 years younger than their white counterpart.
I think some people are missing a salient point: my in-laws in the 1980s were middle Eastern and Asian and prized very light skin. They stayed covered up, head to toe unless just women were around. sun kissed skin was considered a sign of poverty.
These women aged almost as fast as whites, getting lines on their faces despite staying out of the sun.
My oldest daughter will be 27. Many people think I am just a few years older than she is. She is now aging faster than me.
My youngest son will be. 30, I am often mistake n for his girlfriend.
This study has already considered the tan factor and the melanin quotient.
My kids are biracial and they have almost caught up to me in looks. They are all brown skinned people with both sides about the same color..but THAT is not the only factor.
THE POINT the article attempts to make is that there is something within the genetic makeup of the melanin which appears to slow down the appearance of aging. Having already factored in melanin, this means tanningand controls were already considered and yet there is something more.
My sister does and has for over 50 years. And she is almost 60 but looks around 37.
Wait.. Nothing like going to an Amusement park (Six Flags) and getting continuously hit on by 17-24 year olds who have a hard time believingthat I am old enough to be their momma’s mother.
Lol. Unfortunately wearing another races melanin I like putting on a leopard pelt.. It may make some feel like a cat, but it fools no one.
They adopt black babies to train them up to accept white mates. many of these children are sexually molested and also taught to hate all other blacks.
Whites are going sterile and the only gene pool strong enough to reinject the white race with fecundity are BLACKS.
This is why the present craze to have babies with blacks. Europe whites has been at Negative population growth since the 1980s and whites in the US have had only 2.3% population growth each year for decades.
white males have decreased fertility when paired with white females and thus downward spiral was first noted in the 1960s.
At that time in an attempt to provide more variety, Pacific Asian groups and some African groups were redesignate as “Caucasian”. In the hopes that whites would mate with more fertile races.
Unfortunately not enough were interested from Indians, Pakistanis, and Middle Eastern and the genetic pool was not diversified enough to jumpstart white female infertility.
Enter the feckless black man and it turns out that often, women and men within the white race who cannot produce offspring together can do so when mated with a black counterpart.
So blacks either willingly IR clueless my are studding and brooding to reinject new life in a stagnant gene pool
As far as white people are concerned..any oriental looking person in America is an Asian,and any person of African descent in the U S is an African American be they just arrived from Ethiopia, or slave descendants from1698.
African Americans are the only black people white America is obsessed with.
The intensity of the sun now us much stronger than it has ever been in the history of mankind.
What aboriginal and Native people were able to adapt to is NOT the level we now have due to breaches in the ozone layer.
My dermatologist said that my Vitamin D value was a 4. That was the lowest EVER at his clinic.
They determined that due to my level if melanin which slows radiation absorption: I would have to lay out in full sun for 16 hours a day all summer long.
That would be dangerous and impossible for me.
I take Sublingual Vitamin D drips which are tasteless. Psoriasis, dry skin, excema, brittle hair and tiredness, and joint pain are just some if the symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency. My brand is “pure encapsulations Vitamin D3”
most people have Vitamin D deficiency. That is a metabolic issue due to slower absorption of the sun’s rays BUT that is a different issue from sun damage caused by too long or intense epithelial exposure.
AKA, Epsilon Xi. 1979
Most black women I know have very dry skin. I have very dry skin. The oilier the skin the more it stretches and as time goes on it does not snap back. The key is the sun.. The sun ages skin and without melanin protection. Other races pay for chasing bronzed skin.
I am routinely mistaken for being in my early 30s and no part if my skin is oily.
Conversely. I have 2 very beautiful daughters who are not finding it nearly so entertaining these days that I look like their sister instead of their mother.
As my oldest girl is approaching 30 and her much paler skin is beginning to line.. She is often upset (now) about how my apparently darker skin is not aging.
Nearing 60..and not only do I have no lines or wrinkles..my hair is still mostly black..my silvers are naturally less than 50 strands.
Barring illness, my family rarely gray up before their mid 70s.
please. I eat American garbage..never use sunscreen..orlotions or face creams and when I used to wear make up.. I slept with it on. I am told by most that I look like I am in my early 30s, though many MN think I am in my 20s. I will be 55 this year.
Outlook has a lot to do with aging. if you think and act older, the rest will follow.. Then I have a girlish face. When I was younger, it kept me from being taken seriously. Now, My face makes me look a lot younger.. But this also means women who are 18-30 think I am their rival and behave accordingly.
They tell me they have a hard time believing that I am old enough to be their grandmother.
Maybe the slow age process is God’s compensation package for all of the extra bs we have to put up with from white women and every other race women and from many of our black men. World to the wise black sistahs… “They only study our attributes to either try to synthesize or steal 1 more Black African trait..to hand over to white women.
Cooperate to your own detriment.
Well I am fair skin white woman white woman who used to bake in the sun and tanning bed but I ended up getting skin cancer so I no longer do that.I don’t leave the house without sunscreen I still like the beach even though I haven’t been in years.
My 67 year old mother in Southern Africa is incredibly young looking and has no wrinkles on her face and still has a great shapely body after 4 kids. She is mistaken for at least early 50’s all the time.Traditional African food does that. Stay away from the Western processed garbage they call food and general European ways of living like drinking and smoking and let mother nature take care of the rest.
We are a blessed group, despite all the hardships we face. That melanin is a godsend.
Invest in African products, Shea butter, African black soap, drink Rooibos tea, wild spinach, lean protein etc, basically the diet we evolved over thousands of years to eat. Stay away from wheat, its a gut bomb and genetically processed rubbish anyway.
Stay as young looking and fabulous as always ladies :))
Black is beautiful to you but to non blacks it remains very ugly. Also, whites have higher IQs and have invented many more things.
The high standard of living that blacks enjoy in America is due to
the fact that they live among whites. For an example of the kind of
society they would have built for themselves one need only visit
Liberia. This West African nation, established by freed American slaves,
has long been one of the most miserable nations on a miserable
continent and is now in a state of barbarous anarchy.
Ignorant simpletons like you like to cite Liberia as some example that Africans can’t make it, yet take a look at how far worse countries that whites invaded are in. Contrast it with countries such as Botswana, the mots democratic, stable, transparent and safest country, all because we did NOT have white invaders in our country. If you leave Africans alone, Botswana is an example of just how well a country can do. Blacks in white countries are not necessarily better off than Africans. To be treated as second class citizens is not a sign of successful and/or better quality of life.
If that is how you measure who is better off then you need your head examined.
I love your argument.The IPCC states that by 2020 up to 95% of all animals on the planet may be EXTINCT and up to 67% of all humans may also be dead due to methane releases and the positive feedback loops from abrupt climate change.
This potential devastation of the planet and annihilation of most life is brought to us by “white progress” and white arrogance.
The so called ‘better lifestyle’ whites have strutted around to may be the death of mankind and so that race may have the dubious distinction of having led mankind over a cliff .
Maybe “primitive ” was more symbiotic with the planet?
TWO things about IQ: Mine is 172, and my siblings (who all have the same black mother and father)as well as my own offspring all have IQs over 147.
That said, an IQ does not actually measure intelligence. IQ actually measures a propensity to learn and the criteria differs from culture to culture.
As an insular ethnic demographic; blacks simply have never learned of bothered to learn the cues and modalities to do well on a white oriented IQ test.
Without a doubt whites would do very poorly on an IQ test revised outside of white culture.
I and my siblings did well because we were raised as military families and assimilation was a base mandate.
On the whole, I have not found whites to be any more intelligent or even conversant on most subjects any higher than most blacks and have found some whites to be singularly lacking in both manners and Common sense. Not all, but enough to render the “whites are more intelligent” spiel suspect.
Non-whites have long known that white women generally do not age as well as other women. It’s a fact. If white people were as half as smart as you claimed they are they should have figured that out a long time ago without having to spend millions on a study done that BTW was done by a white owned company. That’s why you started going off topic like standard of living because you can’t face the fact that the creation of so many wrinkle creams and Botox injections are mainly for the benefit of WW. They may or may not be naturally cute while they’re young but by the time they hit 35 it’s a usually a wrap. Most I know won’t leave the house without makeup. I have seen some pasty white women without makeup and I asked if they were sick because they look like they’re on their death bed. I have white friends a decade younger than me and when we go out I get carded and they don’t. Meanwhile my relatives in the 50s, 60s and 70s have skin that smooth like silk. But I understand why you’re salty. Haters got to hate.
Girl they know all of that I am beginning to think that the reason why all these black people being murdered and making it seem like it was a hate base crime was to cover up the fact there maybe a black market for Black Organs they been studying us long enough ! I doubt their scientific research is to help our race!
So I looked through a good chunk of the comments on this article and I thought to myself… Where are all of those white folks that like to, daily, troll and stalk the comments section of this site? So funny that they just happen to disappear when it comes to something like this, eh? I guess they just can’t handle it the truth! lol
No we don’t actually need it because we’re not out there lying in the sun trying to tan! With that said, we need to be in the sun to receive our daily does of vitamin D and to my knowledge we don’t need to drink milk to receive vitamin D white people do. The sun provide us with what we need! I’ve never used sunscreen but then again I never laid out in the sun to get a tan (to burn then peel) when I already have one!
Watch this video:
Sunscreen is nothing more than manufactured melanin! This video is deep!!!
my sister likes to tan as do my 2 daughters. I have sun allergy so I hide from the sun..allergies caused by an antibiotic reaction.
I’m so sorry to hear about your allergic reaction. I personally don’t tan because of the effects the sun rays cause to any type of skin but I do get out there and soak up the much needed vitamin D every chance I get but not enough to be out there where I’d burn and get skin cancer.
Over 10 minutes in a hit sun and my dark, chocolate butt will BURN.. That’s right.sun burn, with stinging and itchiness and skin sloughing and I am the color of Whoopi.
Really, we have ALL shades in my family none of us burn including my fair-skinned ass but it’s hard to believe your comment. I’ve never read any comment written by a black person comparing themselves to Whoopi and calling themselves chocolate lmmfao oh my these unbelievable trolls!!!
the master molecule is DNA……
.Melanin is produced by the oxidation of the amino acid
tyrosine, followed by polymerization. The pigment is produced in a specialized group of cells known as melanocytes. There are three basic
types of melanin. Melanocytes are melanin-producing cells located in the bottom layer (the stratum basale) of the skin’s epidermis, the middle layer of the eye(the uvea), the inner ear, meninges, bones, and heart. Melanin is the pigment responsible for skin color.
You cannot peel off melanin from the skin, they are active
layer of cells consistently changing with sun exposure. You can however destroy Melanocytes cell with drugs, stress and other immune suppressant. Once you destroy Melanocytes, your body will not produce melanin. Hence you will have white spots or your body will go entirely white. All prescription drugs destroy Melanocytes. The lack the most important molecules the master molecules that is responsible for DNA repairs, skin regeneration the production of hormones, heat, electron absorption and vitamins production from the Sun. it is Melanin.
Melanin is responsible for a type of photosynthesis that occurs in the human body when it is exposed to sun. That’s slows down cells ageing and cell death. As of 2015 scientist clearly stated that melanin is a complex molecules and they know less than 5% of its use in the body they are discovering the benefits of Melanin every day. Academia are now calling Melanin the MASTER molecule. It’s more like 20 to 40 years difference if the black person have a healthy lifestyle.
In most countries studies are done using one country. It is okay if you are excluded, not everything is about you.
Same for native Africans. They don’t get skin cancer and they live right on the equator, which should put them at a greater risk than anyone in the world, lol! I read somewhere that recently, there was an increase of Africans in a few African countries getting skin cancer, but this was only after ppl in those areas began abusing skin lightening creams, smh!
We do , but at the same time do not have to. We can stand out in the sun and get a tan within 20-30 minutes .
I am nearly 40 years old and still get carded for alcohol because people assume that I am in my 20s (or younger) since that’s how I look. My mother is almost 60 and can easily pass for 40. Aging well and having beautiful skin are just 2 of the NUMEROUS natural benefits of being a melanin-dominant human being. #blackmagic #melanin #naturalbeauty
I’m 50 and I get carded all the time.
We better watch our backs as they will go to extreme measures to figure how they can steak our melanin…..just saying
Oh please..its more like 20 years
try 25-50 years slower than white women. Black don’t crack means we can be put to rest with not a single line in our skin.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. There’s so many BW in their 40s and 50s who look half their age. Olay just gave the public a gross underestimation.
I’m 50 and have very few gray hairs. Also, the only wrinkles visible on my skin is at the end corners of my eyes. The corners have wrinkle but ONLY when I smile.
you look your age
Yeah & I bet you look 20 years older lmmfao!!
You look amazing do not pay any attention to the troll. 🙂
Thank you sis 😉
I don’t use sunscreen after hearing that it blocks the sun’s natural rays from penetrating the skin. It’s vital for Europeans to use the protector because their make is different but it will cause vitamin D deficiency(like you say)in us black people which in turn is linked to all kinds of illnesses and dis- eases.
Sunscreen does not have to be used to cause a deficiency. Most people have a Vitamin D deficiency in the winter and many blacks have it in the summer.
I had a very high deficiency but it was due to the following facts:
A. The sun is dangerously more radiant now due to ozone depletion so it can burn ANYONE NO MATTER how MELANIN PROTECTED more easily.
B. The darker your skin, the slower the absorption rate and conversion process of sunlight into Vitamin D
C. The rate of absorption is much slower in many blacks but we are met with a paradox: it takes more sunlight and longer exposure to make natural Vitamin D BUT MORE sunlight and exposure can lead to skin cancer.
My area of specialization in college was Medical Mycology including Dermatophytes.. Blacks can and do develop skin cancers and systemic reactions such as lupus , so we also must be careful in the sun. It is a MYTH that blacks do not tan and do not get skin cancer..some blacks do indeed tan or try to tan and anyone of any race has a saturation point after which the sun can burn, damage cells and cause skin cancer.
just because someone is naturally dark does not mean they have added protection from radiation. it depends on a number of factors.
Cynthia, it is important that black women still use sunscreen! Even with higher amounts of melanin within our skin, we are still able to get skin cancer. Use at least a sunscreen/moisturizer with SPF 30, higher SPFs don’t really do much more
I guess it varies from person to person. Despite a relatively healthy diet, and as a person who regularly spends time outside in hot, sunny Louisiana, I still have a deficiency. This suggests that I don’t have enough exposure to the sun, and I DON’T use an spf, so just imagine a person who does. Ppl, of course use at your own discretion, but still run this by your dr. I had no idea I had the deficiency until I had labs done. The lack of vitamin D can seriously interfere with one’s health.
Thank you for that second link it just backs up what I’ve learnt previously. I definitely think we are being led up the garden path when it comes to protecting ourselves from the suns rays. Our make up is different to those of European heritage so why are these companies and all these health agencies marketing these products at us? Doesn’t make any sense. I think it was 3 decades ago when Australia were pushing for their people(Europeans)to wear sun screens due to high numbers of skin cancer cases, I’m pretty sure the Aboriginals the natives of that land along with other melanised people across the world have been exposed to the sun since time began without the threat of getting skin cancer.
If you use sunscreen it would black the vitamin D needed for the skin to absorb!
why don’t you just take vit d supplements? we may have our own built in sunscreen but we will still age if we’re out in it long enough. in africa and jamaica we normally look more our age for example. so why not use the benefits of sunscreen, aswell as a vit d supplement. then we pretty much wont age even the slightest ha 🙂
Why suggest supplements? ‘I’ll be 50 this year (yes 50!!!) and tan but I’m not out in the sun to end up with melanoma!!! Also, African Sha Butter is an excellent sunscreen! The vitamin D absorbed by the sun rays is all natural and my body isn’t deficient of vitamin d!
Interesting article: http://www.naturalnews.com/003069.html#
http://www.livestrong.com/article/227336-does-spf-block-the-vitamin-d-from-the-sun/
Black women do NOT need sunscreen because WE do not sit under the sun trying to tan we already have one! Sunscreen is nothing more than manufactured melanin!! Also, the cases of skin cancer is mostly white folks but yes black people get skin cancer but it hasn’t been determined that the cancer is from the sun because we don’t bathe in it!!!
Actually everyone needs sunscreen. Just because black people are not tanning in the sun like whites doesnt mean it’s not needed. Just walking to your car, etc causes sun exposure, even driving in your car, and the sun coming in on one side of your face can cause sun damage/discoloration. Suncreen is used to block the rays from the sun from pentrating deep into the skin, whics causes premature aging, dicoloration, and skin cancer. The rays from the sun are damaging even with little exposure. So its best to protect your skin with sunscreen. Please also speak to your dematologist, and they will give you the same advice.
I turned 30 in march but recently had someone tell me I look 22. My mom is 70 and looks 40. I look forward to aging and love being carded.
Americans know there are other black people. Obviously we were imported. Probably said that since the company and university are in the US that’s who was in the study. I do agree it likely would apply to any subsaharan african decent. Actually I think everybody Asians, olive tone whites etc ages better than pale whites. The black people who I see looking old have drinking or drug problems. Even they usually age better than white people. By 35 it’s downhill to Botox for most of them.
Duh! I wonder how many millions they spent figuring that out.
That was my first thought. Everybody already knows this. Next, they’ll be studying why Asians crack much slower too. (I’m not Asian, btw, just sayin’.)
It’s that melanin!
allthingsammamama.com
But of course the original will outlast the knockoffs!! Lol #builttolast
I know that’s right! It’s all in our protective melanin.
We didnt need a study for this info. Its true for even light skinned black women, my mom is in her late 50’s and she has no wrinkles, she just started using skin creams , she has always used sunscreen though. Black don’t crack !
* Its not just Melanin though, we also have oilier skin and thicker skin ( more layers) all of this adds to our naturally more youthful look.
I have been using 50 SPF sunscreen for YEARS. And I’ve noticed that dark skinned black women (darker than a paper bag), look younger, on average, than light-skinned black women. Perhaps this is to make up for all those “you so black and ugly” jokes that we have gone through in our youth.
Do we even need spf? I thought we have this naturally in our makeup and this is why so many Black ppl have vit D deficiency. I know I do ?
they studying us now so they can figure out how to slow down their aging process -_-
we age slower yet they are the superior race lol f_ck outta here
That’s what I’m screaming! And how can they feel THEY are superior when OUR muscles are more easily toned and defined, teeth and bones are stronger (and, not easily broken!) our bodies can literally do everything known to man, and they’ve finally taken notice that we don’t age. This is all on top of the fact that we have glowing, radiant skin, hair that can take any shape or form, and lips and eyes to die for. Black is SO beautiful!
Also, water is wet 🙂
This is particularly interesting, as there have also been many studies indicating we age faster internally due to the affects of systemic racism.
That’s apparent! Overall, the article was informative. I didn’t know the melanin in our skin is natural sun protection. Still I like to be safe by applying sunscreen in a low spf.
Be careful with that… Bc of our natural spf, Black ppl are more prone to vitamin D deficiency. We have to take in more sun since our skin naturally repels sunlight. I was recently diagnosed.
Oh okay, thanks for the information!
Hold it! Where the key at? Hold the key up, oh-oh. ?
Wtf is “African-American background”? Why do Americans think African-Americans are the only black people on the planet? *rolls eyes*
But interesting article. It’s cool to know there are other factors involved as to why blacks or people of African decent don’t age as quickly as others.
Because they didn’t study black people without an African American background. I get what you are saying, but the study was done in Harvard. Of course the study could have used participants from any black background and we would have come to the same conclusion.
Because in your home country things are centered around you.
1. Because White Americans have an on going history clearly obsessed with Black Americans in the most unhealthy & worst way possible it’s usually though racism & exploitation
2. They’ve been doing studies & experiments for the longest on Black Americans. Including the ones that talk about how “ugly, fat, ghetto, abortioned, single mother, unwed, welfare queen etc they are this just “Appears” to be a positive its prob not
3. Maybe they actually tested women of an Afro-American background cause that’s so hard to find in America
Canada & the U.K are known for mainly Caribbean people and then Africans. And it’s not even your home countries. Most time when they relate stuff to Black people there it’s usually about Caribbean/Africans
Yall are so unbelievably petty sometimes it’s ridiculous
Caribbean’s and many South Americans are of African descent just like our AA cousins. I don’t see any differences in our make.
I was annoyed when I wrote my comment. And what you wrote is YOU assuming AA’s think were some separate Alien species. Thats how yoyr talking to me right now. Why do foreign Black people think this I have no idea. But you clearly do.
Exactly what I was thinking, yet the study mentioned Caucasians and not Caucasian Americans. Most people I know or have come across of African descent up to the 60’s age range look more like they are 20 years and not 10 years younger than their actual age.
I’ve noticed that White people do not like using the term black in America because they think its offensive. I’ve also seen many African Americans call out white people when they use the term black.
I know, if they think African americans age slowly, they should go to african countries and check out the original black people, lol, youthfulness even upon all our suffering and hard life. Someone mentioned dark skinned a/americans age better than light skinned ones, lol, funny, not so for us Africans. Its def no news that ppl of african descent are the best in aging. God bless my beautiful, strong, resilient continent and our people!.
Which is precisely why they make products for white woman with melaninin them so they too can have this perk. And which is precisely why white celebrities adopt black babies so they can have their white scientist perform experiments on them to extract the core to blackness and their genes so they won’t look like old hags by 40.
*sips tea* But that is ALL of my business.
Time is our side. Yes it is.
Well, DUH. lol…One downside is that men my age will talk to me thinking I’m younger, but when they find out I’m their age they head the other way.
Or worse..40+attracting the young jee z types
I get the same reaction from men my age all the time! They look at me funny, assuming I’m younger than I am. They don’t seem to take me seriously or they refer to me as ‘cute’ or adorable, not hot,lol. #shortandyounglookingblackgirlproblem
Haha, I’m 26 and my problem is that I have to really dress up to look my age. I’m a student so when I have my backpack on forget it… I’ve gotten chatted up by high schoolers… awkward! Also every waiter/ clerk/ maintenance person/ office worker calls me “honey”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2701889/It-DOES-matter-youre-black-white-Controversial-research-claims-black-people-age-quickly.html
I think 15 years is more accurate with so many sunbathers out there. Also, the shape of our features tends to be more youthful looking and so it’s an overall affect.
You’re right about the features. The full lips, round nose, and even kinky/curly hair makes you look younger
I agree. A lot of people have told me that my big eyes make me look younger
I wonder if they actually controlled for skin color, though, because the spectrum of “black,” “hispanic,” and even “asian” skin tones varies so widely.
Did they take into account how much time was spent in the sun.
I agree. I also wonder if they took into account how many of the sunbathers used sun block and the frequency of sunblock reapplication.
This is a good question. Most black Americans do not deliberately bake in the sun.
Maybe I missed something but the article said that genetcs have something to do with youthfulness fo African American. Why disput an article give credit where credit is due. Would you ask the same question if this article was stating that black women age faster than white women . NO .
Asians and Middle Eastern people age almost as fast as whites. they line up..though actual wrinkles and balding might be later.