Western Morning News (Saturday)
Charmian Evans Smoke and mirrors with cigars and face packs
SEVERAL years ago, I bought an illuminated mirror that has such intense magnification that a single hair looks like a tow rope. It’s an object of extreme cruelty. Even on days when I’m feeling just a tad over 25, one glance on my bathroom wall and I’m brought back to reality with a bump. No chance of vanity, this mirror destroys all illusions, allows me no delusions of the creeping years.
The sunshine poured in this morning. Mirror, stuck resolutely in place, was unforgiving. I caught my reflection. After months of lockdown and central heating my skin looks as smooth as a dried-up riverbank, my laughter lines were no laughing matter.
It’s gratifying to know I’m not alone. I know that, not only because I talk to friends, but also because I learned the beauty industry, particularly the skin area, is worth a staggering £27bn a year supported by people trying to hold back the tide of getting older.
Newspapers and magazines thrive on reviewing the latest products guaranteed to take years off our lives, and zeros off our bank balance. A plastic surgeon pal once said that he thought skin didn’t stand a chance because we slathered stuff on it from an early age and stopped it being able to self-regenerate. He planned to do research on it one day, but I bet if he did, he’d have the beauty industry leaving horses’ heads in his bed. The search for eternal youth is big and selling face products even bigger, so suggesting they might be a waste of money wouldn’t go down too well.
Face products today can start at £5 and go through the roof into triple hundreds. Is it a question of the Emperor’s new clothes – the more you pay, the better you look? I dunno. But still, we go to all sorts of lengths to hang on to our younger selves.
I remember meeting Barbara Cartland once, prolific author and elderly Barbie Doll, always dressed in sugar pink, who had eye lashes like garden rakes. “I use black boot polish dear” she said. Hold her by the ankles and you could plough a field with those lashes. Her skin had the texture of a plastered wall and I remember being fixated by it when she said: “If you ate a lot of honey, you could look like me”. I gave honey up for a long while.
I also remember using clay face packs – the sort that would block drains. In those days I used to smoke occasionally. I came home from work, poured a vast quantity of bubble goo into our avocado bath and in the absence of cigarettes found a Churchillian-sized cigar someone had given us. I donned a hideous pink net shower hat and smothered my face with a thick white face pack which dried like plaster of Paris – not before I had clenched the lit cigar between my teeth.
At this point Hubs came in from work. He plonked himself on the loo seat to de-brief from the day. Despite the wafts of one of Havana’s finest, combined with some sickly Gardenia parfum bubbles, he carried on chatting, completely oblivious that I was unable to speak, my face so set I could only make sounds sucking and exhaling the cigar.
It was at that point that I realised I was married to a wonderful man who really wasn’t remotely worried about what I looked like, and certainly would neither understand nor see the difference if I spent thousands of pounds on skin care in my lifetime.
Despite Hubs I have, of course, spent money on potions and lotions. I’ve been suckered into all sorts, following the tradition of ages. In Egyptian times rich women bathed in milk, loaded with lactic acid so it probably did help beautify, if not a tad smelly. Gold top or skimmed I wonder? And the Greeks used honey as a face mask and moisturiser. I digress, but Queen Elizabeth I used to pack her achy teeth with honey every night to stop the pain. Hmm.
Anyway, as I’m pondering what to buy for my armadillo skin, I got sent something called a Foreo UFO 2. Nothing to do with outer space. It’s a whole new concept on skin care and if you’re someone who doesn’t want to go for facials it could be the answer. The hand-held round appliance links to your phone and offers up a range of skin treatments that use an LED light to penetrate various masks.
There are eight different functions – supposed to boosting radiance, relieve stressed skin, a heat setting to help penetrate skin, a cool one to reduce puffiness. The gismo claims to increase skin moistures by up to 126% in one 90 second treatment. And I have to say, my skin has definitely improved. The manufacturer is working on improvements and until they do it’s not cheap at £249, but I think it has great potential.
My ruthless mirror will be the one to tell me if it’s worth the bother. We’re all ageing whether we like it or not. Half my friends need glasses and wouldn’t spot a wrinkle at two feet whether they wore them or not. Maybe I should buy them a mirror… but that might be a bit cruel.
Half my friends need glasses and wouldn’t spot a wrinkle at two feet