'A cream for every face bar the one facing the awful truth!'

Rocking the latest in the beauty products. Image courtesy of AI tool Dall-e.

Scrolling through online nonsense this week (I know, I need to get a life) I watched some Japanese TV in which a man was trapped under a giant boulder in the middle of nowhere.

In the footage, his inconsolable wife tries desperately to shift the rock but to no avail. The dying husband tells his tearful beloved that he loves her and to hold his hand while he passes away, but she refuses to give up and prays for help.

By a miracle, the clouds part and a bearded figure descends from the heavens in a shimmering light and, with a benevolent smile and wave of his hand, grants her one wish.

She looks into the eyes of her partner for life, then back to the heavenly form and says: ‘I’d like the skin of a 16-year-old please.’

Cue astonished look from hubby, a double take from God, and a voice breaking into the scene to extoll the virtues of a high street skin cream. ‘Want your skin to feel like that of a teenager? Then buy…’

Whether this ad shifted a few pots of overpriced face balm I don’t know, but it pretty much summed up the all-pervading desperation some have to hang onto their youth. Desperate individuals like, erm, me for instance.

I often stare at the assorted pastes and jars of goo jostling for space on our bathroom shelf and wonder, am I missing out?

Day creams, night creams, firming gels, extra-firming gels, exfoliators, eye balms, Voltarol pain killer cream (that’s mine), collagen serum, Lynx deodorant (mine again), retinal serum and an overnight mask with algae extract to name but a few.

And this is the stuff she’s left behind while on a trip out of the country. Maybe she thought using them all would see her turned away from the bars for looking underage!

With her being away, I have, of course, tried most of them. And having maintained a healthy diet, reduced my alcohol intake (I’ve yet to touch a drop today) and undertaken a rigorous exercise and skin care programme in recent weeks, I can tell you that I have, in all honesty, never looked older.

You have to admire the genius of the marketing men for turning insecurity into a multi-billion-pound industry.

Then again, what if that latest Japanese product really works? Like the poor boulder man, I’m caught between a rock and a hard face!