It takes me considerably longer to get ready in the morning, or to go to sleep at night. Leaving aside the complicated network of decisions involved in putting clothes on, there are a nearly infinite number of products which must be employed in the ongoing campaign to appear young, thin, well rested, and, if I’m lucky, and all the potions have worked, pretty. Glossing cream (my hair tends to be dry). Some powdery stuff to give it texture (it is too straight, too fine). Micellar water, with a stack of cotton rounds and a cup full of Q-tips. Eye make-up remover, oil-free. Evian in a spray can. Two different kinds of serum. Day cream, night cream (premières rides d’expression). Sun cream, to mix into day cream, SPF 50, I am very fair-skinned, when I was little my mother always protected me from the sun, big hats, big umbrellas, because her mother didn’t, she said, and now she’s paying the price. Eye cream. Thigh cream. Body lotion. Foot cream. One bottle of perfume, used daily. (Three bottles gathering dust.) Two kinds of eyeliner (charcoal and black liquid). Concealer. Pressed power. Several shades of eyeshadow. Lipsticks, several. Lip gloss, several (none new). Liquid blush. Solid blush. Assorted brushes, nail files, bobby pins, barrettes, tweezers, samples of other potions which I might eventually use, thrown into my little shopping bag by a shop assistant when I paid for the potions I do use, in the hope no doubt I would return to buy full-sized versions of the potions.