Lynda Carter, 75, reclines in an outdoor bathtub, bubbles covering her chest, a martini on a nearby table, a lake and greenery behind her. The image, posted to Instagram in July, prompted one fan to ask, “My God, is she getting younger?😍”. It was a moment of carefully constructed nonchalance, a performance of agelessness that Carter herself later demystified.

Speaking to People in March 2024, Carter attributed her appearance not to surgery but to fear. “I’ve never had any facial surgery is just because I’m afraid,” she said, adding that the outcome is “spending time in a chair with some really good people doing your hair and makeup.” She insisted that celebrities look like everyday people without the three-hour makeover. Her stance is one of candid pragmatism: a refusal to cut, paired with an embrace of cosmetic artifice.

This negotiation between acceptance and intervention echoes across the beauty landscape. In Argentina, makeup artist María Ferjol claims that “well-placed blush can rejuvenate up to 10 years,” advising women to sweep colour towards the temple rather than the apple of the cheek. Heidi Klum, 53, recently told Us Weekly that her husband encouraged her to “eat more,” because “with age, we look better when we’re not as skinny.” Lindsay Lohan, facing plastic surgery rumours, told Elle that her “glow up” came from a daily juice of carrot, ginger, lemon, olive oil and apple, plus cold water splashes. Brandy Ledford, 57, is blunter: her beauty routine, she told Fox News Digital, is “Botox and bleach,” alongside heavy weight training for bone density. In Brazil, actress Claudia Ohana, 63, pushes back against the cult of youth, declaring, “I got old, damn it,” and mocking those who think 60 is an expiration date. Meanwhile, a Tehran-based holding company has developed a “Supreme Face Lift” after 15 years of anatomical research, targeting deep structural layers rather than merely pulling skin.

The public response is a mix of adulation and scrutiny. Carter’s fans marvelled; Klum’s followers called her “beautiful”; Ohana faces haters who weaponise her age. The French accountant Isabelle, 55, noticed her neck looked “fifteen years older” than her face, a dissonance that plastic surgeon Déborah Obadia says is common among women who neglect that delicate zone. The anxiety is pervasive, but so is the defiance.

Perhaps the most enduring picture is not the bathtub but the martini beside it: a small, deliberate prop in a scene that acknowledges time while refusing to be defined by it. As Carter said of her Wonder Woman legacy, the character became “a symbol for the beauty and the strength and the loving kindness and the wisdom of women.” In her seventh decade, she seems intent on embodying that symbol on her own terms.