SarahVine Hello hols, farewell fuzzy milk bottle legs

When you get to my age you can’t just ‘go’ on holiday. Oh no. Such things require serious preparation, both mental and physical.

Talk about mission impossible. entire invasions have been orchestrated in less time than it takes me to get my legs to the point where I will risk exposing them. As for my upper arms and stomach, they haven’t seen daylight since the old queen died.

The rest? Well, it needs to be t horoughly buffed, polished, sculpted, pummelled, tinted and tweaked until I can get it to the stage where I’m confident I won’t frighten small children. First, hair-removal. I was recently sent an odd little depilatory gadget, which, in the way of these things, sat on my desk for several weeks, eliciting various not terribly funny comments from male colleagues.

eventually I took it home to try, if only to put an end to the jokes. Turns out it’s rather brilliant. It’s called Pearl and it basically singes off unwanted hairs. If that sounds dangerous, don’t worry, I tried it and managed not to set off the smoke alarm. It’s very good for legs and can also be used on the bikini line — if you’re terribly brave.

next, t anning. One of t he paradoxes about getting older is that your thighs look much nicer if they’re tanned, yet getting them tanned is quite impossible because they’re all wobbly and covered in thread veins.

YOuhave two options. either you can have your leg veins r e moved through sclerotherapy, which can be very ef f ective (although success rates vary from patient to patient) but needs to be done during the winter months (it’s one of those procedures that make the problem l ook much worse before it gets better); or you can banish the husband and the kids for a couple of hours and turn yourself into J-Lo using the power of self-tan.

In my experience, the success or failure of self-tan depends entirely on the amount of preparation. It is not a process that can be hurried. here’s what you will need: some plastic gloves (Spontex all-purpose will do fine) and a tanning mitt (the mitt is not essential but the gloves are), a good exfoliator, a normal moisturiser, a full-length mirror, a pair of soft black trousers, a loose black top, an old towel and a glass of wine. Oh, and some selftan, of course.

Run a bath, soak for 15 minutes. Then exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate, paying special attention to knees, elbows, heels and any other dry or scaly area. Then do it all again. Once out of the bath, slather yourself in moisturiser, again paying extra attention to knees, elbows, etc. Drink your wine.

now, pull on your gloves. Both hands. Just a reminder now: you are naked in front of the mirror (that’s what the wine was for), so you might want to lock the door. Starting at your feet, work the self-tan into your skin in upward motions, making sure you don’t miss any bits. For this reason it’s best to use a product that darkens the skin visibly — it seems messier but the end result will look much more professional.

Work fast — most modern selftans are designed to dry quickly. Check your progress in the mirror and go over any white patches. Do your arms last and, when you’ve finished, take off the gloves and brush the excess onto your hands. Best not to do your hands per se — they don’t really need it, and it’s easy to stain nails and cuticles.

Once you’re dry, get dressed in your black ensemble. no underwear, please, and no shoes. And no sudden movements. After a while you will start smelling of biscuits (this is the active ingredient in the tan working). Stick with it for as long as you can bear the smell, then shower off and moisturise.

having taken the edge off your pallor, it’s easy now just to add a tiny bit of fake tan to your ordinary body cream and use every day to build a proper beach-fabulous colour. To this end the genius that is Clarins has just brought out Self-Tanning Radiance Plus Golden Glow Booster (£18): just a couple of drops in your everyday body cream will turn it into a gradual tanning product.