A Model at 53 With No Makeup and No Skincare: Laura Ponte Says the Best Routine Isn't for Sale

In an industry that lives off selling creams, serums and promises of eternal youth, Spanish model Laura Ponte has just turned 53 and uttered a sentence no cosmetics brand wants to hear: „I have normal wrinkles and I'm not for any kind of skincare. I never wear makeup. One moisturizer, very rarely some treatment - and that's all."

Ponte is not an outsider commenting from the sidelines. At 20 she won the Elite Look of the Year award, and in January this year she debuted on the haute couture runway for Chanel. She built her whole career on a look the industry would „fix": pronounced under-eye circles she refuses to cover. „I've been thin my whole life, with dark circles, like a skull - and I've endured it all," she says.

Her formula for beauty sounds suspiciously cheap: „Take care of yourself, walk, surround yourself with good people. That's the best beauty routine there is." Instead of a gym - walking on foot and public transport, getting off a few stops early. Her only compromise with fitness trends: dumbbells by the coffee machine. „I start doing a few strength exercises while my coffee is brewing" - a concession to science, which considers strength training essential after menopause.

She's at her sharpest when talking about the new standard imposed on women in their fifties: „We've reached the point where a woman at 50 has to have the body of a 30-year-old. Well, no. We don't all want to be muscular - being healthy is one thing, this is another. Let's respect that every woman will be whatever she wants, without all this pushing."

„Forever young at 50? Well, no," says Ponte - and that's exactly why she's still on the runways. „Being a model means representing a part of society, and there are people of all ages. If I want to walk at 70, I'll walk." At a time when rejuvenation has become a second job for every woman with a public profile, one such „no" is worth more than a whole collection of serums.