Product Placement

Calm yourselves, ladies – I am unfortunately not referring to your behinds. No, I allude to a revelation that I had the other day going through some old photos with my uber-glam pal Jane. After wincing at how terribly ‘1993 Next Directory’ my clothes looked compared to hers, I then became fascinated by my fifteen-years-younger face. It’s not that I think I look much older, but there was a quality to my skin then that I just don’t have now. In a word: youth.

I know what happened to it, don’t get me wrong. I gave it to several – who am I kidding, hundreds – of bottles of Ozzie red. Some of it was also kindly donated by my good self to Marlboro Inc. And what remains is just, well, less ‘plumped up’.

So, what to do? I know – use my revelation as an excuse to try out a load of gorgeous hydrating masks in an effort to restore what I once teamed with Next jodhpurs and a ‘body’. First up, Estee Lauder’s Hydra Complete Multi-Level Moisture Gel Mask (£26). The name is long, the price is high… what’s not to love? Actually there’s more, especially if, like me, you can get a little ‘overloaded’ by oilier formulations. This little beauty is grease-free so hydrates without zits appearing the next day. YSL Hydra Feel Hydrating Masque (£30) has my favourite spelling of ‘mask’ and also made me feel like I’d had a facial. Lovely.

At the cheaper end, Boots No7’s Heavenly Hydration Moisture Mask (£12.50) performs just as well, delivering deeply moisturising, vitamin-enriched yumminess and prompting me to Go Without Foundation. Always a benchmark for a good product, even if I didn’t actually leave the house. I’ve saved the best till last, as the song goes. My beloved Elemis has an Exotic Cream Moisturising Mask (£29.00) that, like most Elemis stuff, smells heavenly. I leave this on at night sometimes. It undoes about 10 wine bottles worth of damage, I reckon.