Agreed on all points. Vanity and all that.
My general thoughts are under 40 you can go for sexy --- over 40 should go for classy. Classy is more sexy than sexy to me.
Natural sexiness serves the male gaze. High class fashionability serves female status signaling.
The former is learned, practiced, and refined while natural sexiness stand out (under 40). By the time looks can't be relied on, fashion, cosmetics, and wealth facilitate graceful aging. Graceful aging is about looking good at your age - 40, 50, or 60. Tina Turner is a great example of gracefully aging.
At risk of offending the hotties thread...
People who "get work done" are rarely ok with limiting it, because they are trying to control it all. And it almost always (maybe always) turns out very badly. A good looking 50-year old will never look as good as a good looking 27-year old, but they can still look stunning, and almost always they look better without any "work."
Plastic surgery is about making yourself look younger than your age. But oddly, because plastic surgery is exclusive, it is less about serving the male gaze and more about signaling high class status among other women. Just like having a Chloe purse, a pure-bred dog that fits into the Choe purse, or having a gay friend who knows what a Chloe purse is, all the faces overdone by injected lips and Buccal fat removal is about status. And more younger women are unnecessarily risking their natural looks for the synthetic face.
Us men can see that Lauren Snchez looks more like a blow-up doll, but the coverage and tabloid treatment of her cosmetic work is projected as high status.
