"Je n'ai pas l'âge d'avoir des rides..." : les représentations linguistiques du vieillissement dans les publicités des produits de beaute

In the era of the cult of youth, old age and ageing constitute a cultural taboo, and in effect, a linguistic taboo as well. The copywriters of cosmetics' advertisements are thus faced with a double challenge. How to make the anti-age products sell by convincing the female clients that they are also subject to the ageing process, without distorting their self image as still young women at the same time? In what way are they trying to achieve this double aim? This article will focus on the analysis of the linguistic representations of ageing, and in general on the passing of time in advertisements of cosmetics, on the basis of the corpus of advertisements from women's magazines and from the websites of well-known brands of the cosmetic industry. The euphemisation of ageing up to the point of its rejection by the myth of everlasting youth, war metaphors, the reference to scientific discourse with particular attention to the medical discourse, are just a few of the linguistic methods applied in order to make women accept their age, but also to persuade them to purchase such cosmetics.