The common conception that men age better than women appears to be a thing of the past.

Researchers, who carried out a detailed study into the perception of aging, revealed women think they are aging better than men and it seems men agree.

The study found nearly two thirds of females said they were aging better than their partner, and 59 percent of men said the same.

In fact, over half of men said they believe they age faster than females, according to the poll of 1000 men and 1000 women.

Men said they start to "look old" at 44, whereas women cited 46 as the age the typically started to look over the hill.

The study, by anti-aging product Forever Youth Liberator by YSL in the UK, also found two thirds of men said their wife or girlfriend looks better for their age out of the two them, and nearly one in 10 said there was rivalry between him and his partner over their appearances.

"We wanted to discover the age at which men and women most widely consider to be the point of aging," Amandine Ohayon, spokesperson for YSL Forever Youth Liberator, said.

"There has always been an assumption that women are more susceptible to age faster than men, but this research shows that this stereotype is changing.

"Women have always been much more aware of the aging process, and as a result this may mean they are making provisions that men aren't.

"Females have had it drummed in to them about the effects that things like smoking, sun exposure and a bad diet can have on their skin and overall appearance, so perhaps women are taking action to fight the signs of aging."

The study also discovered one in four women regularly worry that they look older than their spouse.

Incredibly, more than one in 20 women even said they had been mistaken for their partner's mother and not, in fact, their wife or girlfriend.

One third of the men who took part in the study said they worry as much as women about the aging process.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 20 percent of the women questioned said they would not want to be in a relationship where their other half was aging better than they were.

So much so that 13 percent of females said they have worried that their partner would leave them for someone younger.

The study also found two thirds of all adults said men become distinguished as they get older, but only 31 percent said the same of women.

A surprising 39 percent went the extra mile and said they love them more than ever, and growing old together was just a natural process.