Mirror/Mirror: Women’s Reflections on Beauty, Age, and Media

AARP’s annual study focuses on women’s attitudes toward beauty & grooming, aging, and portrayals in media and advertising.

2024 was the fifth year of the study and after looking back, AARP found three themes emerge:

• For women, beauty is more than one’s physical appearance; it also comprises one’s character, values, health and well-being.
• Pressure to appear a certain way to the outside world eases with age as women become more of their authentic selves.
• Media has made significant strides to include and embrace a wide range of diversity that defines women in the U.S. today; still, it is not enough.

Read the report

We’re sharing the 2023 edition of the survey because AARP released separate reports specific to Asian American women’s, Black women’s, and Latina’s attitudes towards beauty and advertising.