Recently while walking the Sheltie, I had a chat with an older man along our regular route.

He told me about his time serving in WWII, how he and his three brothers all were in service simultaneously. Then he asked me how old I thought he was.

Well, I stammered, you served in WWII, so you’d have to be at least eighty — right?

Give me a hug, he exclaimed, before telling me he’s ninety-five!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many folks who are ninety-five. And this man certainly didn’t look like I expected a ninety-five-year-old person to look.

Probably because he didn’t have a wrinkle on his face.

Not one!

It was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. No brown spots from the sun, no dryness, no whiskery stubble.

I wanted so much to ask him how come he looked so young. I mean, I’m pretty sure he hadn’t bought into the sunscreen craze, hadn’t “had work done,” hadn’t exfoliated and creamed and moisturized and all the things we’re told to do to protect our skin.

A few days later, my sister called and said her dermatologist mentioned that the reason elderly men’s faces look so much younger than elderly women’s is that they shave.

Shave??

Yep, apparently shaving is a natural exfoliant, ridding the skin’s topmost layer of dead cells and revealing the “good stuff” underneath.

Who knew?

I’ve been going to dermatologists for decades, and not a one has told me that.

They probably don’t think women need to be shaving their faces.

But I’ve been in hair salons where female customers regularly come to have their mustaches bleached. And I’ve seen plenty of fair-haired women with tons of “peach fuzz” on their cheeks and jawlines. And lately I’ve been seeing TV ads for “discrete” hair removal products aimed at women as well as men.

So maybe there’s something to it. What do you think? If you’re a woman, would you consider shaving your face if you could waylay the appearance of wrinkles in your old age?