Mirren proves that true beauty is ageless

Helen Mirren

Will Hanafin

The ageist beauty industry is finally facing facts that eliminating older women from their ad campaigns is bad for business.

Helen Mirren (69) has been unveiled as the new face of L'Oreal, and she's even put her foot down about retouching, insisting that her image can't be digitally altered. "Your 40s are good. Your 50s are great. Your 60s are fab. And 70 is f------ awesome. I'm not quite there yet, but almost," said Helen recently.

This positivity is a far cry from the 1990s when Isabella Rosselini claimed she was dropped from Lancome for being too old. The chances of finding a woman over 40 plugging beauty products back then was as unlikely as finding a jacket without eye-endangering shoulder pads.

Many commentators are now comparing Dame Helen to a fine wine, but a bottle of vino had a better chance of swinging a modelling contract back then.

But there's been quite a change of heart. Helen is just the latest 50-plus woman to front a cosmetics campaign, with Tilda Swinton (53) and Charlotte Rampling (68) also making the cut recently.

Of course it's got nothing to do with the fact that the beauty market for 50-plus women is worth over €2bn a year!