Gwyneth Paltrow Makes Peace With Her Wrinkles Ahead of 50th Birthday

Gwyneth Paltrow is preparing to turn 50 by keeping us on our toes. Ahead of the milestone birthday on September 27, the Goop guru published an essay musing on her path to self-acceptance and outlook on the future. It would be the perfect opportunity to embed some of her wellness empire’s many anti-aging products or link to its many age-related skincare guides, but it turns out that wouldn’t be in line with Paltrow’s new outlook. Apparently, she no longer really cares if you can tell that she’s lives some life. In fact, she’s not longer even hung up on wrinkles.

The reveal begins with Paltrow waxing poetic about how her “essence” remains unchanged, she’s begun to take pride in the fact that her body bares evidence of a life lived. “A collection of marks and irregularities that dog-ear the chapters,” she says. “Scarred from oven burns, a finger smashed in a window long ago, the birth of a child. Silver hair and fine lines. The sun has left her celestial fingerprints all over me, as if she soaked a brush in dark-taupe watercolor, flecking it over my skin.”

With all of Goop’s beauty and wellness arsenal at her fingertips, Paltrow has myriad options for addressing, say, her sun spots. In fact, she spent the summer prosthelytizing her GoopGlow Dark Spot Exfoliating Sleep Milk. We’re going to guess that she won’t be going as far as to clear out her bathroom cabinets, but if she’s true to her word, Paltrow will no longer hold such types of products at such high levels of esteem. Having realized that her quest for good health and longevity can lead to “reckless thoughts,” she’s taken up a mantra: “I accept. I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity.”

Though Paltrow is often cited as a pioneer in the celebrity self-care and wellness sector, she’s actually a bit late when it comes to accepting that not everything have been controlled. Stars ranging from Cameron Diaz to Courtney Cox have sworn off botox, and ‘80s teen star Justine Bateman even wrote an entire book about excusing herself from the intense pressure Hollywood places on women’s appearance last year. “The idea that an older woman’s face is something that should be deleted—I wanted to examine why we have these ideas in our society at all,” Bateman told W at the time. It seems Paltrow is beginning to have similar questions too.