Let’s do this together

My glam mate Lou looked at me critically as we stood at the old bag make-up counter in a wellknown department store.

I was moaning about my ashen winter skin being as dry as the Dead Sea scrolls, and she said bluntly, “You need a lash lift. And then a brow dye. And a skin peel.”

I gave her a hard stare and replied, “Thanks for the pep talk. Where did you learn your people skills – Putin’s school of hard knocks?”

I was only moaning because I have my first Christmas party this week, and I’m feeling about as festive as the Grinch with carbuncles.

It’s all very well-meaning when groups book an early slot to avoid the rush, but we’re only halfway through November, and I haven’t got my party face on yet.

But Lou did have a point. Some lucky people have eyelashes that flutter, I have short, stubby lashes that stutter.

The menopause also means that my thin, sparse eyebrows are fading to grey.

Some of that was my own fault in the 1980s with over-plucking to get the Blondie look, but I also blame those medieval torture instruments – eyelash curlers.

It was only years later someone told me you were supposed to use them before applying mascara, not after.

There are no right angles in nature, so I don’t know what possessed me to force a curl in my stumpy lashes with them, because when I released the clamp, the teeth stuck to my thick blue mascara and practically ripped out both my eyes.

Anyway, I’ve already paid for my two-course seasonal supper on Thursday night, so I’d better go and show willing.

I was looking in my wardrobe for something to wear, but haven’t been able to summon the enthusiasm for the sparkly dresses that are hanging there from Ibiza earlier this year.

On the party island every single female looked exactly the same. Lash and hair extensions and big furry eyebrows that were brushed upwards, like someone had stuck mini bristly brooms on their forehead.

“Fake it till you make it, baby,” said Lou, shimmying around in her little gold numbers.

But she literally sleeps with a can of hairspray and bronzer, while I sleep with a pug, cat and mouth guard to stop me grinding my teeth, so it’s not a fair comparison.

I think I’ll wear black to the early Christmas party. It matches my mood.

■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.

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