What sort of sap doesn't know by now that picture-perfect beauty is all done with smoke and mirrors anyway?

Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.

The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst.

What I find most upsetting about this new all-consuming beauty culture is that the obsession with good looks, and how you can supposedly attain them, is almost entirely female-driven.

Surely being a Professional Beauty - let alone an ageing one - is one of the most insecure and doomed careers imaginable.