Joan Bakewell: We age. We wrinkle. So get used to it...

Were you there at the door? Were you battering on the plate glass eager to be first to make the purchase? Are you even now scurrying to e-Bay with whatever haul you've made? No, I thought not. Predictions of a stampede to Boots this morning as one more elixir of life goes on sale will, I expect, have been disappointed. It not that there isn't a market for this stuff: there certainly is. Its just that the old don't behave like the young. They've better things to do. They've learnt wisdom.

The elixir of life isn't, of course, any such thing. Boots No 7 Protect and Perfect is a cream that has a special ingredient, possibly several. I'm not one of those who scrutinise the ingredients on the pack before I buy. For one thing, the print is often (deliberately?) too small. However, word has got around for some time now - via beauty columns in magazines, by word of mouth - that this cream is really good. It first went on sale four years ago. I've been meaning to buy a pot for months.

Today's expected rush to buy is not the launch of the product at all, but the effect of a BBC Horizon programme, screened only last March, which said that Protect and Perfect does what it says on the tin. Boots, which had until then been used to selling some 1,000 pots a week, were suddenly hit by a fantastic surge in demand. In the 10 days following the programme, 60,000 pots were sold. Stocks ran out and women signed up on the waiting list. Today, 200,000 bottles are back in the stores, some of which are opening before breakfast to cope with the expected demand.

There are numerous paradoxes at play here. First, at a time when people can expect to live far longer than their forebears did, the fear of ageing is greater than ever. It's the mirror image of the cult of youth. Any sense that you're leaving the supposed golden years behind has to be fought tooth and nail.

Anti-ageing products are a huge growth market. Nonetheless there are strict controls on what advertisers can claim. There was a time when the word "cure" could be casually invoked to sell a product. Cold and cough "cures" were abundant. Not any more. Likewise supposed anti-ageing products. Ageing is a natural process governed by many things including our genes and our environment. It is merely the visible effects of ageing that the cosmetic market addresses.

You will notice, if you are a watcher of beauty product language how weasely the wording has to be. "Age-defying" is one such clever construct. Even then there had to be some evidence. Hence the importance of a programme like Horizon, legendary flagship of BBC science coverage for decades.

In the case of Protect and Perfect, the pseudo-medical word "serum" has probably clinched its popularity. Even so, Boots' scientific adviser, Steve Barton, who submitted his new serum to tests at Manchester university, and admits to using it himself, explained that he used it "to keep my skin in good condition, rather than keep my wrinkles away. But my wrinkles are probably better than they would be if I didn't use it."

So, in other words, they will never know, those frantic clingers to the raft of youth , whether the cream has worked or not. I'd like them to have tested it on W H Auden, who in his later years looked like a benign old prune.

The other paradox is that at a time when more and more women over 50 hold important jobs, earn big city salaries, are present in the media, in fashion, and looking terrific, there should be an increasing concern to avoid acknowledging the truth. We age, we wrinkle. Get used to it.

I suspect that the market for this magic will be largely among those who are in their thirties and forties, and only at the foothills of growing old, still playing at being young. As you get older you grow less gullible to the blandishments of advertisers: basically washing comes clean, cars get you there, alcoholic drinks cheer you up, cheesy whatsits fill you up. Brands are merely, well, cosmetic. The basic gunk used by most cosmetics is much the same, plus a scent or two, and fancy packaging.

Even now there is a hint in the air that the values that exalt youth are changing. The youth market that has set the agenda for decades is losing its grip. Cheap and cheerful is under threat. Use and discard isn't green. Suddenly there is a place for classic clothes. Some charity shops, it's rumoured, discard the ultra-cheap stuff because it simply falls apart. Vintage is a growing business. Perhaps those small antique shops that have fallen on hard times will enjoy a comeback. The awareness that insatiable consumerism must have its limits is leading to a reassessment of quality and durability. Don't replace, repair. I've long predicted that home dress-making will be the new cookery.

Meanwhile, as the wrinklies storm the stores, Richard Baker, chief executive of Boots, could well be coming in the opposite direction. He is the man who has presided over the success of Boots, seeing its underlying trading profit for the year until March go up by 6.3 per cent to £641m. Yet it still unclear whether he will stay when the takeover of Boots by KKR goes ahead. Success at the highest level, yet it could mean he's out of a job. Success is a false god. Age teaches you that too.

joan.bakewell@virgin.net

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