Parties: The cats who got the cream

Usually at beauty launches there is some perfunctory cooing over the star product and it's straight to the champagne, dahling. But at the launch of Elizabeth Arden's limited-edition Eight Hour Cream at London club TwentyFour (eight plus eight plus eight, geddit?), guests gushed about the wonders of this glossy lip salve cum first-aid balm in impassioned tones.

The actor Camilla Rutherford was on a mission to get more for her mother, while singer Sandi Thom was after some for herself. "It's what all the models used back in the '60s; it never goes out of fashion," former model Jan de Villeneuve told her illustrator daughter Daisy.

The bevy of impeccably groomed women in attendance including Burberry model Morwenna Lytton Cobbold, TV presenter Hannah Sandling, ex-Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, and Anna Popplewell, star of the Narnia films, who slinked about the room admiring photography that was on display by students from London College of Fashion.

Only a seemingly tipsy, denim-clad Gail Porter (quickly swept towards the exit by a friend) and a few rogue males, including Nicky Haslam and shoe designer Jimmy Choo, interrupted the sea of designer dresses and vertiginous heels on display.

Later in the evening both Nancy dell'Olio, and Sound of Music star Summer Strallen (plus her terrier, although we're not sure of the benefits of Eight Hour Cream for dogs) made time to pop by briefly, while the author Imogen Lloyd Webber propped up the bar. Meanwhile a magical night was being had by model Tamara Ecclestone and The Tudors actress Natalie Dormer, seen enjoying the theatrics of street illusionist Dynamo. Shame he couldn't conjure up a few more pots of the cream, though. With only a few samples to be found in the goodie bags, one couldn't help but notice the disappointment on some faces as they inspected their bag of booty on departing.