This year I turned 50 with, I hope, a face that does not believe my age.
Some of it is down to me: I’ve never smoked, I’m not a big drinker and my fair skin means that I have avoided the sun.
But I may as well be honest: mostly it’s down to the R1 million I’ve spent on smoothing and tweaking over the past 13 years. I was 37 when I started having Botox, a decision that surprised even me.
I’d just spent £8,000 on cosmetic dentistry to correct my gappy smile. Suddenly I had lovely, straight, shiny white teeth sitting in a ‘lived in’ face. That didn’t seem right. What was the sense in my smile being dazzling if the rest of me was haggard?
I always thought I would grow old gracefully and be happy with what I had. But Mother Nature was doing a right hatchet job on me. My forehead was becoming furrowed and as for my laughter lines — as Victoria Wood once said — ‘surely nothing’s that funny’.
The problem with Botox is that it’s like the crack cocaine of the beauty world. Once you’ve tried it you just can’t give it up. It works so beautifully and achieves what no expensive face cream ever can. I fell in love with that muscle-freezing toxin.
We had brief fallout when I was 45 and decided to quit my R5 793 a time, four-times-a-year Botox habit — but I only lasted six months. Some may learn to lovetheir wrinkles, but I’ll never be one ofthem.
Throw into the mix the rejuvenating facials, occasional jowl-zapping with a laser and the face, eye and neck creams I slather on (not to mention the insane amount I spend cutting, colouring and taming my wild hair) and it all adds up to a £4,000-a-year habit.
It’s the cost of a nice holiday or a new wardrobe (both of which I need), but I choose to spend it on my face instead.
Gone are the days when all a woman had to rely on was good genetics, a dollop of cold cream and a lot of wishful thinking. A time when fashion doyenne Coco Chanel famously quipped: ‘Nature gives you the face you have at 20. Life shapes the face you have at 30. But at 50 you get the face you deserve.’
Today, it would be far more accurate to say that, at 50, a woman has the face she can afford. I like the face I can afford — I suspect the face I deserve would scare small children.
Mine is the first generation of women whose birth certificates may confirm they are middle-aged, but if they have the will and the budget, can boast a face that suggests otherwise.
Dr Michele Engel, who runs Cosmetica London, where I go for my Botox, tells me: ‘In Brazil, where I am originally from, they say “there are no ugly women, only poor ones”, meaning that if you don’t like something and you have the money, then you get it fixed.’
The thing increasing numbers of women are fixing at Dr Engel’s treatment rooms are the telltale signs of ageing.
‘The onset of menopause is the number one thing that drives women into my clinic. Ladies in their mid-40s to mid-50s account for the biggest proportion of my client base,’ she says.
‘The ageing process accelerates faster than at any other time after menopause. When men age, words such as “distinguished” and “silver fox” are used. That’s never the case with women.’
And the procedure most of these middle-aged women are demanding is Botox — still far and away the go-to antidote to wrinkles.
Despite its popularity, Dr Engel says that her patients all have realistic expectations and don’t expect — or want — to look half their age.
‘I hear the word “fresh” time and again during my consultations — they just want to look as good as they can and less tired,’ she says.
‘It is perfectly possibly to have Botox, fillers and laser treatment without anyone ever knowing and I would say 80 per cent of my married clients don’t tell their husbands.
‘The effect is more natural and subtle — not frozen. And work should never be obvious.’
The truth is that there isn’t anything natural about having your facial muscles paralysed or your furrows filled in with the beauty world’s equivalent of Polyfilla.
But wanting to look the best you can for the age you are, rather than a version of your younger self, is key.
In starting Botox in my late 30s I am unusual among British women, with most using it as a cure in mid-life rather than a prevention.
It does, however, mean I will be able to spend less in my 50s as my facial muscles are well and truly trained.
Some women who start treatments in their 50s regret not investing earlier.
The face Elena Filomeno 55, from North London, can afford is coming in at about R139 044 a year. That covers Botox, fillers and radio frequency treatment at the Aesthetics Lab clinic in London to tighten the skin on her face and neck as well as facials and peels.
Elena didn’t start having any work done until she was 50. Sunbathing and a social smoking habit may have contributed towards the face she deserved, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t invest some time and money in getting an improved one.
‘I work in the party planning business and I meet clients all the time,’ she says.
‘I looked in the mirror one day and thought “My goodness you look worn out”, and it then started to affect my confidence. I have regular treatments to my face, I’ve had my teeth bleached and my eyebrows tattooed and I feel ready to face the world. Yes, the upkeep is expensive, but I believe it is worth it.’
She adds: ‘I don’t want to look like a teenager, but neither do I want to look like an old lady. My only regret is that I didn’t start much earlier.’
It isn’t just our skin that lets us down. Thinning brows are another factor in getting old and can be as ageing as crow’s feet and sagging necks.
Good brows can be youthful and some women choose them as their anti-ageing point of focus — though that, too, comes at a price. I’ve spent hundreds on growth serums that did nothing, and had so-called high-definition (HD) brow sessions at R1 931 a pop.
I am shortly to have microblading (a semi-permanent solution where fake brows are painted on), a move that will add another £400 to my annual face expenditure. Again, according to beauty artist and brow expert Tahira Wells, it is the more mature lady making up the bulk of her customers.
Many of them realise that well-defined, thicker brows can instantly lift a face.
‘The hormone shift that comes with the menopause can mean you lose 50 per cent of your natural brows and once they’ve gone they’re not coming back,’ she says.
And there’s no point in having an unlined face and fabulous brows with straggly hair.
I’m fortunate in that I don’t have grey to cover, but as I’m still trying to kid the world that I am blonde and not mousey, it means I spend £200 every other month getting it cut and coloured.
In the space of two generations, women’s attitudes to their looks have changed hugely.
When my grandmother was my age, she had grey permed hair and wore flat shoes and sensible home-knitted cardis, as did all her friends. Today, most of my friends in their 50s appear barely any different from how they looked a decade or more earlier.
It’s a strange situation to find yourself in. We know that it shouldn’t matter that we lose our bloom. Feminism has hammered home the message that we should not be judged for our looks.
The feeling is something psychologist Dr Vivian Diller calls the beauty paradox in her book Face It: What Women Really Feel As Their Looks Change.
‘Otherwise sensible women in mid-life are programmed to have a crisis over ageing because we’re presented with two incompatible and contradictory messages,’ shesays.
‘The first states emphatically that looks do not matter. Our feminist forebears have instilled this in us by telling us that competence and intellect are thequalities that define and empower us.
‘Message two is a direct challenge to this. It says youthful looks are the key to attractiveness. We’re urged to defy and fight the signs of ageing if we don’t want to be ignored.
‘I see clients who are concerned that they are ageing and equally worried that they care so much. Feeling this way about ageing is natural, but it should never become an obsession.’
Former Friends actress Courteney Cox, 52, admitted she did take her concern about ageing too far and regrets some of the work she had done.
‘Sometimes you find yourself trying and then you look at a picture of yourself and go: “Oh, God.” You look horrible.
‘I have done things I regret, and luckily they’re things that dissolve and go away. That’s good, because it’s not always been my best look. So, now I just have a new motto: “Just let it be,” she said.
For many women, turning 50 is a pivotal moment. It’s undeniably middle-aged yet we are staring at the prospect of another 20 years in the workplace.
Kate Michaela, from Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, turns 50 next year and for her there was never any question of letting Mother Nature dictate how her face would look.
Single and running her own beauty salon, Kate needs to look as good as she can and is the best possible advert for the treatments she offers. She has Botox twice a year and undergoes regular anti-ageing facials.
Luckily, being in the beauty industry she is able to get her treatments at a discount — but still spends £400 a month.
Vitamins account for a £200 expenditure including antioxidants, green tea capsules as well as £150 a month on custom-made day, night, eye creams and serums.
‘The maintenance is constant and it is a lot of money, but it’s my choice to spend my income in this way. I want to look my best and I think the investment has paid off,’ she says.
‘No one believes I’m nearly 50 and that gives me confidence and a more engergised outlook.’
Being able to afford a face with some bloom at 50 is a nice feeling. The question is: when do you stop? I’m not sure I want a face I deserve at 60 either.
Dr Engel says: ‘I treat women in their 70s and 80s. After the age of 65 any treatments are at the doctor’s discretion, but overall health is a much bigger factor than actual age.
‘Yes, women always have the choice to stop treatments and let their faces age, but why would you if you don’t have to and can affordnot to?
‘I don’t believe it’s pointless vanity. Vanity is something you don’t need and, for a lot of women, looking their best is a need and a worthwhile investment.’
Music to my ears, though I suspect that Coco Chanel would not have approved.
Cameron Diaz, 44
Nicole Kidman, 49
Courteney Cox, 52
Daily Mail