Advice from the old lady:
Im a white blue eyed blond of Scandinavian and Scott Irish decent. It has everything to do with avoiding the sun in combination with great genetics and healthy lifestyle. Healthy lifestyle includes getting enough sleep.
One benefit of being a nightlife chick is sun avoidance. When I was 21 a coed I knew in college got skin cancer from the tanning beds that were the rage in the 1980s. I never laid in one. After that happened it freaked me out enough that I quit laying out to speak of and mostly avoided the sun. If I was bright white, well I was bright white.
Now in my 50s I look remarkably good for my age. Last week I was out & got to chatting with a couple of retired NBA guys. One is very dark like
@EyeBRollin was saying. His jaw literally dropped when I told him my age...they thought I was 32. Thats 20 years younger than I am. They were gobsmacked. I have a tough time guessing the age of black men or women because there is much truth to “black don’t crack.” I always guess way under their actual age. A good girlfriend of mine is in her mid 40s and she has a milk chocolate colored complexion. Her skin is flawless & she looks 28 or 30.
Brown skinned people and Asians as well age generally better than whites as far as skin goes.
There are interesting studies that have been done to demonstrate that skin color emerged to defend against the sun whilst making enough Vitamin D. Lighter skinned people hail ethnically from higher latitudes where sun is scarce and winters long. Paler skin better used the available sunlight to make Vitamin D. Closer to the equator sun is abundant and melanin is more important to protect against UV rays. So much sun even dark skin made enough Vitamin D.
The interesting exception to this are native peoples of far North America...the Eskimos. They ate a diet so rich in Vitamin D via whale oil that they developed or kept darker skin and didn’t have to evolve into lighter skin tones to make up for sun shortage.
It’s all very interesting when you look at the anthropology of it.
White skin handles sun the least well and therefore ages worst.
