Still Beautiful by Katie Piper: Don't base your worth on what you look like

Given that Katie Piper’s new book is called Still Beautiful you might think it would be full of advice and tips on looking ‘good for your age’ – a phrase she mentions but doesn’t like.

But it’s the opposite of superficial; it has depth, with Piper insisting: ‘How we appear on the outside is the least interesting thing about us.’

That’s a powerful statement, especially coming from her. Piper was, after all, a model in her early 20s, trying to make a living out of her good looks in the heyday of lads’ mags until, aged 24, her life was forcibly turned on its axis after she was the victim of an acid attack.

She tells of the years of painful recovery. She considered taking her own life. She dealt with a grieving process over her looks and youth being taken from her, but also had to cope with some repugnant reactions to her scarred face as it healed.

More than that, the man who had arranged the attack had raped her only days before. Getting through it all – even turning much of it into positives – she realised ‘that founding my worth on what I looked like or what others (particularly men) thought about me was incredibly shaky ground’.

She learned to look to the inside to find her worth, her power, her purpose, and it’s this message she wants to get across. She draws comparisons between her experience and how women can grapple with the subsidence of youth, their looks changing when aging for women is framed so negatively by (a patriarchal) society.

Now in her 40s, she is not worried about getting older; she’s thankful to be alive, keen to make the most of life, and she’d like others to feel equally empowered rather than focus on collagen loss. We must reject society’s lessening of us, as jawlines slacken and fertility declines. Her premise: youth should not be synonymous with beauty and external beauty is not how we should value ourselves or accept our valuation.

In the process she does, briefly, take aim at the beauty industry and media for focusing too much on youth. As a journalist who has spent many years of my career as a beauty editor, I don’t blame her; I’ve always struggled with the term ‘beauty industry’ – it sounds like a Fifties housewife template for passive perfection.

Thankfully, things are shifting, and the sector is becoming more about self-expression and self-care (Piper herself is a spokesperson for L’Oreal Paris) but despite all its modern inclusiveness, the business still finds it hard to extend that to women over 50.

Mainly, though, Piper challenges society and women themselves to no longer accept the status quo. It’s not all about looks, it’s also about life looking – or not looking – the way we (or others) expected it to, and how and why those expectations arise for women in the first place.

For those facing other challenges, such as losing a job or a big relationship, the realities of being a mother or not having children, being married or remaining single, this book serves up a generous helping of positive outlook and agency.

A blend of advice, throwing down the ageism gauntlet, and a movingly honest biography, this is an easy, life-affirming, and empowering read. The arguments may not exactly be new but they’re confidently and comprehensively argued, and the book deserves to kickstart bigger conversations.

It’s full of wisdom about making life happen for you not to you, that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, using your voice, valuing yourself, owning your power, your beliefs, your age, and the importance of grounding yourself in all of that because that’s the stuff – like good advice – that doesn’t age.