Sephora on a Saturday afternoon is something else. The beauty store is rammed with small girls clutching shopping baskets , their ponytails swinging side to side. It’s a dystopian vision of the future – these girls (some I reckon as young as five) sharing the shopping experience of mid-life women, purchasing anti-ageing potions.

Their faces are flushed with excitement, the healthy, rosy, glow that only children seem to possess, and wears off as “the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune” – one of my favourite Hamlet quotes – play their part in ageing.

People have been ageing forever. It’s not new. It’s also entirely natural (despite what big brands try to tell you). Women in particular have been demonised for allowing it to happen: you won’t see many Disney baddies with smooth s

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