Under your skin

Moles, rough patches and pimples? Time for a derm MOT

I WON’T PRETEND it’s not awkward to lie semi-naked on a surgical bed as a man in a white coat painstakingly reads my body – from toe to scalp – like a map. But when I turned 40, I gave myself Dr Christopher Rowland Payne as a present. Not the man himself (which would have been weird, and problematic in terms of gift wrapping) but an hour, every January, in his London Clinic surgery.

Well before I had even the most cursory interest in health and beauty, Dr Rowland Payne was the name being bandied about by the kind of Chelsea girls who wore cornflower-blue cashmere, moved in royal circles and were assigned a dermatologist to keep their skin cyborg-smooth at 16. What seemed laughable then is plain common sense to me today – especially after five years in LA, where every woman has her ‘derm’ on speed dial. (Ditto in France, by the way, where there are 3,000 working dermatologists to our 650.)

We see a dentist once a year, readers of this column probably have a facial at least a couple of times a year, and with the amount of cash we spend on our hair in that time – the blow-dries, trims, treatments, colour and colour rectifications – you could probably afford to retire to that villa in Eze-sur-mer (you know, the one with the exposed brickwork and view of the bay).

This year, I’m suggesting you sacrifice a couple of those things (doesn’t have to be the villa – Dr RP is expensive but not that expensive) to have the largest organ in your body checked and rechecked by the most reliable and un-faddy dermatologist in the business – or at least one you’ve been recommended on good authority. I’m suggesting you rise up against that British inclination ‘not to fuss’ (which, along with the expense, is why most women don’t have a dermatologist in their little black book) – and start fussing. Fuss about the darkening mole that may or may not be a friend, the curious rough patch on your back, the white pimples that can’t be squeezed and yellowing on your eyelids (time to go and have your cholesterol checked out, says Dr RP).

As the Doc frowns and tuts over my 20-odd square feet of flesh, I cram in every question I can think of: what sun cream should I use? Which supplements should I pop? How can I unclog pores? And luckily for you, I’m sharing some of the great man’s answers here.

Celia Walden