Allure Magazine
Gay Block and Gwyn Sirota were identical
twinsuntil one sister became noticeably
more sun-damaged than the other
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Gay Block still remembers the moment she first
saw the pictures of herself and her identical twin,
Gwyn Sirota, before they got face-lifts.
"Not only was I mortified, I was sick to my stomach.
For two days."
Though she has a sense of humor about it nowBlock
calls herself "the bad twin"at the
time, she was disturbed by the proof that years
of excessive sun exposure had made her look so much
older than her (formerly) identical sister.
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Gay Block
at 59 (left) with deep wrinkles and sagging
skin. Her twin, Gwyn Sirota, spent less
time in the sun, and it shows.
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Block and Sirota met New York plastic surgeon Darrick
Antell, who took the pictures above, in 1997
at the annual Twins Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio,
where he photographed hundreds of identical twins
in an attempt to document the environment's effect
on the skin.
"I was really taken aback by some of the differences
in aging," he says. Block and Sirota, then 59, particularly
stood out, and when Antell interviewed them,
he says, "It became pretty clear that sun was the
main villain in this case."
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At age 21
in 1959, both had smooth skin. (Block is
on the left.)
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When the sisters were in their 20s, Sirota stayed
behind in their native Baltimore while Block moved
to California and be came a long-term sun worshipper,
taking frequent trips to nude beaches in the '70s.
"I turned hippie," she jokes, " and Gwynny stayed
straight."
Block, who turned "straight" once she became
a born-again Christian, also did missionary work
for a couple of blazing summers in China and Thailand
and now lives year-round in Hawaii.
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Block (left)
and Sirota in Hawaii when they were about
42.
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Block (left)
having champagne with her sister in 1983
at age 46.
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What's remarkable about the twins' skin, Antell
says, is the synchronicity of the visible agingwith
the exception that, for Block, it's much more pronounced.
"The pattern of the crow's-feet around the eyes,
for instance is very similar the lines are
essentially in the same spot, but they're deeper
and more severe in Gay," says Antell, who
has observed the same phenomenon around the mouth
and in the "more excessive" skin of Block's upper
eyelids.
(As it turns out, once Block decided to proceed
with plastic surgery, Sirota, who has often found
it hard to distinguish her own looks from her sister's,
elected to go under the knife, too.)
The lesson, Antell says, is that it pays
to practice "defensive aging," which includes "avoiding
smoking, excessive sun exposure, and minimizing
stress."
Some of Block's sun damagerougher skin texture
and reduced elasticity due to collagen breakdowncouldn't
be repaired by surgery.
"Gay's skin definitely has a different tone to
it," Sirota recognizes now. "There's no two ways
about itthe sunning was definitely bad on
her. Every year we get older, it's more and more
obvious."