Joys Of Modern Life: 18. Beauty Treatments

THERE ARE grown women who cling to the notion that a man or a lottery ticket might one day excise all the dreary bits from their day- to-day lives. Most of us are past that. On the other hand, the New Look/New Life formula has never lost its appeal for me.

It's not that the old, craggy life has so many low points, just that one can't help feeling that facing each day with a more luminous complexion would have a distinct improving effect on one's joie de vivre. Hence my love and lust for Beauty Treatments.

In serious Beauty Treatment terms I am small fry. I've never had anything injected into my lips or lines and I am a stranger to the cosmetic knife. However, this is more testament to the fact that none of these procedures cost less than pounds 55 and can be guaranteed Not To Hurt, than good sense. In the Eighties, whendebt was de rigueur, my Beauty Treatment quest took me as far as the Spa experience. In those days it was all tummy-pummelling, mud masques and G5 massages for thinner thighs. I was hooked and booked in whenever I had the chance. I would race happily from pedicure to body scrub, my bathrobe flapping behind me.

Of course the Three Day Top-To-Toe Treat is rather passe now, but the wonderful thing about modern life is that when one's hopes of algae and other marine-based miracle workers are flagging, along comes the oxygen facial. Who'd have thought it?

Plus, the Nineties beauty experience is about so much more than looks - it is also good for your health. I know this because today I get lymphatically drained whilst enjoying my dewy-new-skin-tone-inducing treatment. I cannot think of a lovelier way to blow a week's grocery money.

And even in the weeks when groceries simply have to be bought, a quick whip around Boots can be a pleasurable experience. Although, in my heart of hearts, I know fine eye lines are unlikely to disappear in 21 days, I feel content heading homeward clutching something chock full of nano- zanopheres.

Sensible folks might point out how much more one could put in one's pension if one's bathroom contained fewer preening potions. These are people who don't know the uplifting effect of reading the words "banish" and "cellulite" on the same label. For me, the hope that a glossier creature will peer back from the mirror is as good as it gets. And I haven't even had a rejuvenating non-surgical face lift yet.

`Getting Gorgeous - 30 things women must do in pursuit of beauty, shoes and happiness' (published by Headline, pounds 7.99)