How To Be Beautiful: Hands-on treatment

There's no set age at which concern about the state of your hands kicks in, but, generally, it's at around the same time that you realise pervasive corporeal decline entails a re-evaluation of your best assets. Unlike those physical features held to ransom by gravity and a slackening metabolism, your hands are more likely to give you a good aesthetic return on your beauty investment.

Regardless of age, there's always something uniquely impressive about people with lovely hands. It suggests an appreciation of function as much as of form; a decision to look after those parts of your person that you can actually do something useful with.

OK, so slightly ragged cuticles are unlikely to seriously impede you from doing many things. But chapped, dry hands are no fun at all, so for winter, you owe your digits a decent hand cream. Throw in a pair of gloves, some Marigolds for when you wash up, and a part-time hand-modelling career may even be an option.