How Colours Fade As You Get Older

Now I'm in my 80s, my daughters often tell me, when I'm ready to go out, that my make-up needs a bit of attention. I put too much eyebrow pencil on and too much lipstick. The eyebrow pencil, when it's too heavy, makes me 'look like a clown.' Daughters will always be honest with you about your appearance. The lipstick may be all right, but a bit too heavy.

They'll take some of the eyebrow pencil off and maybe some of my foundation. I don't blend it well enough apparently. It feels funny when they tidy up my make-up. I used to wipe ice-cream and chocolate off their faces when they were little. Now they'll wipe make-up off mine. The roles are reversed.

What I've explained to them is that as you get older your sight often gets weaker and you see colours less vividly. They may see the make-up is too heavy but when I peer in the mirror I see faint lines where I put the eyebrow pencil. And where they see bright red or coral lipstick, I see faint colour.

I don't like the idea that my make-up looks odd though so I'm happy for them to adjust it when they're around.

On the other hand they both compliment me a lot on my skin. Even though I drink quite a bit of wine and have done for years, my skin is clear and I have relatively few wrinkles. My forehead in particular is unwrinkled - my daughters say I must use botox, which of course I don't! But I think your skin is largely determined by your genes and I must be lucky there. I don't have an awful lot of faith in skin creams. I use Oreal products quite a lot but I notice that they always have something new out. The newest thing I bought from them is an under-eye cream that comes with a little vibrating mechanism. You put the cream on and use the vibrating thing to massage it into your skin. But it seems obvious to me that if the skincare companies keep producing new creams for your eyes or face or hands then they haven't produced creams that really work. One year they say "This is the cream you need for puffy eyes" or dry skin or age spots. If it really was though, they wouldn't produce a new one the year after.