There is a photo in my parents’ hallway of my three older sisters and me squeezed onto one porch step in matching Easter dresses, me on the end, falling off. Last spring we tried to recreate it, and the step had not gotten any bigger. These 11 sets of siblings recreated their childhood photos decades later, and every one of them had to fold grown-up knees into a kid-size pose.

I paid for college doing nails at a small salon, and the client I still think about was 81 and had never had a manicure in her life. She asked for “something pink, but not too pink,” then pointed at the brightest bottle on the shelf. These 12 moms and grandmas sat down for a manicure late in life, several of them for the very first time, and I recognized every one of them from my old salon chair.

My mom keeps her mother’s silver compact in the bathroom drawer, and with four daughters it has been to more weddings than any of us. There is a waiting list taped inside the box, and every sister claims her turn was skipped at least once. These 12 beauty heirlooms, from a perfume bottle to a lipstick case, left grandma’s vanity and went straight back to work.