WRINKLY OF RICHMOND

I am fifty next year. OK, it's a number and means nothing and it's to do with health, and state of mind more than meaning anything. It's the new forty, so thirty was just a hiccup ago, although I'm happier now than I was than at 30 so probably had the crisis then rather than now.  Actually thinking about it, I did.

A few years back I was asked to interview a skin scientist. I didn't know there was such a thing but there is, and a cosmetic company had hired him to rid everyone (women) of wrinkles around the eyes.   So hot off a plane from India, I walked into this white cube of a room off Soho, full of twenty something beauty editors who had all been invited to the launch of this latest £100 teeny pot of dewrinkle cream, who all smelt of spa flowers and fruit therapy scrubs and rubs or exfoliating, botoxing, cellulite stimulating, skin peeling, acid thingies that left their skin as white and flawless as the white walls.   So in I walked with my face looking like a map of the world, freckled with the main points of interest, and loads of lines denoting I know not what.  These women looked at me as though I was a 'before' on their beauty pages they could no matter what they tried, do nothing with.    But did I care? Oh no, I thought, hey I have a face that is interesting, that shows I can laugh, have laughed and had a life rather than a lot of botox, and I can smile without looking as though if I do, it will smash into a thousand pieces.  And I heard of how women would irritate their partners by slopping loads of creams, lotions and potions onto the skin just before bedtime so they slithered off the pillows they were so slimy.   In contrast, I was considered relaxed and natural and one even called me 'continental' (not sure what that meant) because I usually just collapsed into bed, happy that my teeth had seen a toothbrush, and that on very special occasions I would take off my eye make up.   But things have changed.  Well, are changing.    This year I have tried a range of products because although I've published the books, travelled the world (although want to travel more world and publish more books) and achieve more stuff on my action lists of life, I want to look less.....well travelled.  I know it's inner beauty that matters, yeah but....      So I have been trying out different products, potions, therapies and supplements and finding out which ones work and which don't. Watch this space.  Or this face...