the best beauty aid for women isn’t found at the beautician’s

If you put your foot in your mouth as often as I do, then it’s got to be well pedicured. I’d just settled into the vibrating chair at my local beautician and was soaking my tootsies when the cosmetic consultant pounced.

“Your complexion!” She grabbed my face, studying its epidermal topography with the same intensity Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson consulted their field maps. She then made a face like the heroine in a sci-fi horror movie who had just seen The Creature: “Are you aware of your upper-lip erosion and unsightly crow’s feet?”

Apparently, I have enough crow’s feet to start a bird sanctuary. And they aren’t merely crow’s feet: they’re gigantic cassowary prints. It seems they’ve been stomping all over my face and I haven’t noticed. “But surely my wrinkles are a badge of honour,” I beseeched. Yeah, right, and Kris Jenner is ageing naturally.

Judging by the beauty assistant’s guffaw, after a certain age “natural” is just a euphemism for “decrepit” and “je ne sais quoi” is French for “the new Pope is ringing you for tips on celibacy”. Clearly beauty is one of the most natural and lovely things money can buy.

She then suggested I have a chemical peel to erase laughter lines. “Surely, a simpler solution is to just read Elon Musk’s social media feed?” I bantered.

She responded with all the vivacity of an Egyptian mummy. Cosmetic procedures, it would seem, are no laughing matter. Literally. In March, London’s Top Secret Comedy Club asked women who’ve had Botox not to come to shows as their “reactionless” faces are putting off the comedians.

I can relate. For the premiere of Wonder Woman in 2017, I was asked to give an amusing talk to female Hollywood executives. Well, I’d seen more animated Easter Island statues. Panicking at my obvious failure to be funny, I started firing off one-liners like a comedic Kalashnikov. Then, just when I was praying for an incoming asteroid, I became aware of a low, guttural growl. It took me a while to realise the noise was actually laughter. It transpired that the women were amused by my talk but hadn’t transmitted the fact to their ossified faces.

Your entire life’s history is written on your face – the babies, the heartbreaks, the hilarity, the hard yakka. Botox wipes your physiognomic slate clean.

KATHY LETTE

Look, I’m not against the odd tweakment, but face-fiddling to the point of zombification is taking this anti-ageing angst way too far. Experts have even expressed concern that the babies of Botoxed mothers might be failing to hit developmental milestones because Mum’s face doesn’t move when she coos to her tot in their cot. Babies learn to read emotions from faces, but what if those faces are frozen?