London - Admittedly, I’m not married to the second in line to the throne, and my hair is more frizzy duvet than glossy swishy brown mane.
I don’t even have a pair of nude heels. But it turns out I do have something in common with the Duchess of Cambridge. I may not have blue blood, but I have black kohl. Like Kate Middleton, I am an eyeliner addict.
The Duchess has borne the brunt of criticism from fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who said: “I think she’s got a problem with eye make-up. The sharp lines make her look hard. Either she should be smudgy or wear none.”
Well, whatever Dame Vivienne says, I have no intention of going into make-up rehab.
I’ve been wearing eyeliner, without fail, every day since I was 15. I can’t go out of my home without it, not even to pop to the corner shop (you never know who you might bump into).
Without it I feel vulnerable, naked, invisible. If I were ever invited to appear on Desert Island Discs, I have no idea which eight records I’d choose, but I know, without a second’s hesitation, that eyeliner would be my luxury item.
Never mind that it would be useless in the survival stakes and I wouldn’t even have a mirror. I simply couldn’t face the prospect of being rescued without it.
My first foray with eyeliner came at the age of 13 when, inspired by Heather Locklear in Dynasty (this was the mid-Eighties), I invested in an iridescent turquoise blue pencil which I painted on to the inner rims of my eyes.
Not only did it not suit me - the turquoise clashed horribly with my grey blue/green eyes - but it also smudged in the inner corners, creating unattractive turquoise blobs that had to be tidied up and re-touched every few hours.
I later graduated to chocolate brown eyeliner which better matched my colouring.
Then, around the time I went to university, I bought an ebony black Rimmel pencil for £2 which was plastered on in a thick ring just under my bottom lash line.
When combined with a black leather coat, long dark hair and a naturally pale complexion, the effect was unanticipated and unfortunate. Everyone, I discovered, thought I was a vampire. I wasn’t.
Kate is said to favour Lancome eye make-up, but for me, it has to be a swish of Makeup Forever liquid black liner on the upper lids and a thin stroke of Urban Decay black pencil on the lower.
It takes just seconds to apply, but this look has become my trademark and security blanket. Without it, I feel undressed. I can quite happily face the world without foundation, blusher or even mascara. But without eyeliner, I feel ghost-like, featureless, anaemic.
Sans liner, the bags and dark circles under my eyes seem more noticeable and my prominent nose and gappy teeth too dominant.
People tell me my large eyes are my best feature: why shouldn’t I emphasise them and make them stand out from my face so they’re the first thing that people see? I’ve tried doing my eye make-up in other ways, using dark brown eyeshadow for a more subtle effect or even foregoing the bottom liner altogether, but it never looks quite right.
Inevitably, like the late Amy Winehouse - perhaps the most famous and memorable wearer of extreme eyeliner - I always end up going back to black.
The power of eyeliner is far more than just cosmetic. Ancient Egyptians - the first people in history to use eyeliner - believed a circle of kohl protected them from the “evil eye”.
Eyeliner also makes the eyes look larger, more innocent, Bambi-like almost. Who can forget the footage of the kohl-eyed Princess Diana during her famous TV interview with Martin Bashir?
It’s sexy, too. Big, black-ringed eyes are alluring - just look at Twiggy’s doe-eyed beauty or screen sirens such as Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.
And Amy Winehouse didn’t achieve iconic (or should that be “eyeconic”?) status until she adopted a beehive and huge-winged eyeliner.
As Kate knows, eyeliner is a hard habit to break. It’s always the last thing I remove at night. And I’ll admit that with a new lover, I have often left my eyeliner on overnight, preferring him to see me the next morning with panda eyes, not bare eyes.
One day, when my eyes are wrinkled and sunken, I suppose I’ll have to stop wearing eyeliner. Until then, I plan to keep applying it religiously. Because Kate and I know that it’s our black-rimmed eyes that really have “it”.
HOW TO GET THE LOOK
Amber Holloway, make-up artist for Laura Mercier, says the mistake most people make with eyeliner is to draw too thick a line, making the eyes look smaller.
“Black is fine but, depending on your colouring, it can look harsh, so deep brown, charcoal or even dark blue might be better choices,” she says.
“Pencil can smudge, so always use a waterproof version. Better still, use eyeshadow, which gives a softer effect.
“For a fresh, wide-eyed look, use liquid eyeliner only on the top lid, with a small, classic, upward flick at the end to open up the eye.” - Daily Mail