I have aged into my looks, like my mother and grandmother before me. I was a cheerful, plain child, a complete mess in adolescence, and started to gain "something" in my twenties. I was 30 before I really liked what I saw in the mirror (and that includes a 20lb weight gain). But I do understand what your friend means: pretty women do age out of pretty, because pretty is by definition young. The rest of us are rather luckier, most of us age into handsome of one variety or another.