Women Talk

The beauty spot: modern toners

daniel — Sun, 20 May 2012 06:00:27 +0000

Grime buster: Origins’ United State Balancing Tonic sweeps the debris away.

Whatever happened to toner – the tingly watery stuff we used to dab on our faces? I rediscovered an old bottle recently. It got me going. “Toner!” I said (I’m not in the habit of anthropomorphising potions in my bathroom cabinet). “I had forgotten you, what with serum and BB cream.” And so I found Origins’ United State Balancing Tonic (£17, origins.co.uk) to sweep away pore-clogging debris and rebalance dry or oily areas. I pressed it on and remembered that satisfying moment toner brings: the cotton wool ball with the grime your cleanser missed. But toner has moved on, too. These days there are mists and pump-action formulas that tighten and lift. Perricone MD’s Firming Facial Toner (£35, perriconemd.co.uk) smells like spas and is perfect for mature skin.

Alternatively…

Nivea Visage Pure & Natural Cleansing Toner £3.36, nivea.co.uk Sisley Botanical Floral Toning Lotion £64, 020 7591 6380 Crystal Clear Revitalising Tonic £20, 08705 934934 Lancôme Tonique Douceur £21, lancome.co.uk

Sali Hughes: nail gels

daniel — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:07:39 +0000

Sali Hughes

Nail gel – built to last. Photograph: Rui Faria for the Guardian

I have two problems with nails. One, they’re infuriatingly high-maintenance; the average paint job lasts 48 hours max before it chips and needs redoing. Two, professional manicures in Britain are prohibitively expensive (if someone can explain how some salons justify £40 for a file and polish, I’m all ears). Regular Manhattan-style manis while we tend to emails are not feasible.

So I was mustard-keen to try the OPI Axxium, a salon paint job using nail gel that lasts around a month. The process was so precise, so complex (30 seconds under this dryer, then left thumb under this, now the right…), that I felt grateful it wasn’t me who had to memorise what was effectively a Busby Berkeley dance number. But here’s what you do need to know: they buff your nails to an unsightly matt finish first, to make the gel polish grip smoothly. Colour choice is more limited. Unlike a normal manicure, polish is rock hard before you leave, so no trying to remove your debit card with your teeth to pay. You can remove Axxium at any time by soaking in acetone. Picking off is forbidden and will damage your nails (following the rules won’t). As I type, mine are just starting to chip after three shiny, perfect weeks. I’m doing the whole thing again tomorrow.

OPI Axxium (above, in Pink Flamingo), £40-£55, lenawhite.co.uk
Long-lasting colour that helped protect my nails from breakage. I’m hooked.

Gelish, £30-£50, salons nationwide, nailharmonyuk.co.uk
A great selection of colours and a shiny finish. Works in much the same way as OPI.

Shellac, £30-£50, salons nationwide
Shellac fans are devoted, many claiming it has strengthened their nails and kept them pretty for three to four weeks.

OPI Gelcolor, £40, lenawhite.co.uk
A new OPI gel manicure that’s faster to apply and lasts up to three weeks. Thirty fashionable colours that give incredible shine.

OPI Acetone Free Polish remover, £7.30, johnlewis.com
Bored with your gel colour? You can paint any polish over it, provided you use a non-acetone remover.

Salon Services Acetone, £1.69, sallyexpress.com
To remove any gel polish, soak cotton wool in acetone and wrap around your nails using foil. Leave for 15 minutes.

And Simon said unto Britney: touch me, so that ye may be healed

daniel — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:07:20 +0000

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Britney Spears is back, appearing as a judge on the US X Factor – and it’s all thanks to Simon Cowell’s unconventional therapeutic care

To Los Angeles, next, where Simon Cowell has formally unveiled Britney Spears as a judge on the US version of The X Factor.

Enchantingly, the singer’s appointment had to be sanctioned by a judge, as she is still under conservatorship following her excruciatingly public breakdown a few years ago. But then, Simon is well aware of all that. Consider the passage in Tom Bower’s biography of Cowell, which details Britney’s guest appearance on the UK version of the show in 2008, all too soon after said meltdown.

Described as “on medication” to the degree that “the studio must be in lockdown”, Britney does not appear to be in the best frame of mind to be making a high-profile TV appearance. Or, as Cowell reflects: “She’s frosty and I haven’t got a clue why and I don’t care. I love all this.”

Eventually, he enters her dressing room. “She was just staring at me,” Cowell recalls to Bower. “I said: ‘Have you ever watched the show?’ ‘No,’ she said. And I said: ‘Touch me, I’m human’, and I think that broke the ice.”

And in that moment, students of advances in psychiatric care will have spotted the birth of a controversial treatment that would come to be known as Simon Says Feel Better. Though clearly not a scaleable solution to all mental health problems in early 21st-century society, this pioneering therapy would see the diminutive mogul heal the sick of pop with the sublimely inviting words: “Touch me, I’m human.”

Let’s see that in action again. “Touch me, I’m human.” “Touch me, I’m human.” “Touch me, I’m human.”

Racking our brains for the only earlier notable use of the technique, we may alight in 1st-century Judea, where a local man became so legendary for his restorative powers that the sick would merely reach for the hem of his robe in the belief that it would cure them. The gospels differ in their accounts of the practice – Mark has Jesus feeling the power drain from him and demanding “Who touched my clothes?”, while certain lost texts are believed to have him calling for the hand sanitiser.

Wherever you stand, though, you have to doff your hat to our own latterday Messiah, whose selfless gift of healing is too often misrepresented as exploitative ratings-grabbing. We can only wish Britney the best of luck with her return to the spotlight, safe in the knowledge that if it all starts to feel too much, the hem of Simon’s grey marl T-shirt will be at her televised disposal.

Beauty news: Chanel tattoos, JLS perfume and even more nail art

daniel — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:01:19 +0000

Anna Chesters

A model walks the runway during the Chanel 2012/13 Cruise Collectionat Chateau de Versailles Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images for CHANEL

Spotted, literally

Spotted at Chanel’s Palace of Versailles cruise show this week – models sporting a rather distinctive facial decoration. From a distance it looked like a standard black dot, but a closer look revealed the trademark interlocking Cs of Chanel. Following on from those temporary tattoos of 2010 Chanel will be launching the branded beauty spot later this year. Maybe not one for the masses, but where Chanel lead others follow so you have been warned.

New on counters

2 in 1 Purifying & Oxygenating Mask from Decleor Photograph: Alain Eli/Decleor

We may not think about using our spare time to indulge in a face mask but you know what? We really should. Doing something for your skin while doing nothing is probably the most relaxing way to multitask. New this month from Decléor is the reformulated Aroma Pureté range with a collection of products aiming to rebalance combination skin. You could do a lot worse than snatch the odd ten minutes here and there for the 2 in 1 Purifying & Oxygenating Mask (£22 for 50ml, decleor.co.uk) which is easy to slap on, smells and feels great, and gently exfoliates as you remove it with water. Minimal faff and a lovely result.

Blog of the week

Photograph: thenailasaurus.com.

My obsession with nail art continues apace and this week is gratified by the fine work on thenailasaurus.com. Launched two years ago by 21-year-old Sammy from South Wales, it’s a charming collection of the impressive art work she creates on her nails each day. I am usually resigned to living vicariously through others when it comes to complicated manicures due to my weirdly child-sized fingernails, but the short and simple tutorial videos she posts make everything look so easy that’s it very tempting. Steady hand essential – and surely some level of ambidexterity too?

JLS advert for their perfume, called Kiss

And finally…

The fastest selling perfume of the last twenty years? No, not the latest must-have from Chanel or Gucci, but the first fragrance from JLS. Yes, that’s boy band JLS. The Perfume Shop announced that the chaps’ perfume Kiss, released last week, caused the website to crash and set a new record after just two days of being on sale. Proof, if more was needed, that slapping a celebrity name on a product will work wonders. I wonder if Brad Pitt will have the same affect after becoming the face of Chanel No5? Kiss by JLS is £13.50 for 30ml, £19.50 for 60ml, theperfumeshop.com

Meet the planet’s most powerful star. It’s none other than Jennifer Lopez. Yes, really

daniel — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:00:50 +0000

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Forbes magazine puts J-Lo at No 1 in the celebrity stakes – thereby making this the most ridiculous of all power lists

You know how some of the stars we can see now actually died gazillions of years ago, but their light is only just reaching us? Please bear that in mind as we discuss this week’s announcement that the world’s most powerful star is Jennifer Lopez. Scientists are believed to be working round the clock to repair the tear in the fabric of space-time that has taken us back to 2001 – the prime of Miss Jennifer Lopez – but in the meantime Lost in Showbiz is urging you to be careful out there. If you hold any Enron stock, you might care to sell it, while the Nepalese royal family is advised to dine in bullet-proof vests until June is out.

We may return to the quantum-physical implications of the news later. For now, you should know that “respected business bible” Forbes has just anointed J-Lo the most powerful celebrity on the planet. Like the actual Bible, of course, Forbes carries its fair share of total and utter cobblers, and you have to think Jennifer’s supremacy is the sort of thing only silly or frightened people could possibly believe.

Not that madam isn’t hugely successful. She’s a judge on American Idol, a L’Oréal brand ambassador, and she’s in those annoying Fiat adverts. Furthermore, she has distilled her ineffable essence into an 18-strong fragrance range inspired by such things as “where I am right now”, “the way a woman feels when she discovers herself”, and “a special glow that women get when they’re pregnant and falling in love with their babies”.

Yet even accounting for this olfactory blitzkrieg, there will be those wondering if Jennifer has quite the full-spectrum dominance Forbes asserts. In fact, there will be those questioning the very nature of celebrity “power”. Even now, you might be turning the concept over in your mind and repeating : “Jennifer Lopez? JENNIFER LOPEZ? She couldn’t make me do NUTTIN’ – not even if a gun was involved.” (Which it wouldn’t be. In 2001, Jennifer’s gentleman caller Puff Daddy/Puffy/P-Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs [delete as appropriate to ensure period authenticity] has just been cleared of four charges of illegal firearm possession and one count of bribery following a shooting in a Manhattan nightclub.)

Of course, as previously discussed in this space, we don’t go to power lists to be enlightened. LiS has yet to read Details magazine’s retraction of its former insistence that Britney Spears’s unemployed ex-husband Kevin Federline was a full 14 places more powerful than Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

So perhaps mindful of the righteous derision that has been heaped on such ranking enterprises, Forbes has decided to let daylight in on magic, and reveal the deeply scientific methodology that caused it to arrive at its conclusions. “The Celebrity 100 is based on entertainment-related earnings plus media visibility,” the magazine explains, defining media visibility as exposure in print, television, radio and online. It claims to speak to industry insiders to estimate earnings, measure online exposure using “Googleblogs”, various tools to search print archives and determine how many times a star has made magazine covers, before totting up Twitter and Facebook fans. And then what? Well, then something rather woolly happens: “All of the data is processed through an algorithm that creates our power ranking.”

Aha, “an algorithm”. Needless to say, Forbes does not divulge details of the “algorithm” that has resulted in a celebrity no one really cares obsessively about being ruled the most obsessively cared-about celebrity in the world. But LiS has been able to model an approximation using a glitter crayon and a series of mathematically rendered computations such as “A = nice arse?” and “B > Britney’s fragrance?”, ending in a decision box reading “GOTO someone like J-Lo on account of Oprah can’t win it every year”.

As for the rest of the list, Oprah Winfrey does indeed remain at No 2, thanks to that most crucial function of the Forbes’s algorithm. Last year she was kept off the top spot by Lady Gaga, who slumps to five, while Justin Bieber sticks at No 3.

Arguably the starkest reflection of the way we live now, though, is the fact that celebutante powerhouse Kim Kardashian sits a full three places above Steven Spielberg. Perhaps power means having the confidence not to keep putting out ever-diminishing iterations of one’s back catalogue. Kim’s sex tape has not been blighted by sequels, Mr Spielberg – yet still you announce Jurassic Park 4 and Indiana Jones 5 like they’re the classiest things in the world. If Kim puts out another wedding, maybe she’ll lose a bit of her moral high ground. But until we reach the Kardashian equivalent of Indiana Jones and the Stoopid Crystal Aliens, then the indignity of losing out to the auteur behind Fit In Your Jeans By Friday may yet continue.

Marina Hyde

Skinny white models could be bad for business

daniel — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:01:26 +0000

Rosie Swash

A model on the catwalk in Madrid Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images

Debate around skinniness in fashion is not new. From blogs to magazine editors to parliament, the issue of abnormally thin models comes up again and again, whether it’s Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson calling for airbrushing to be banned in advertising or Vogue Italy’s Franca Sozzani admitting that “the current inclination to embrace a female beauty standard that exalts thinness has devastating consequences on many adolescents’ eating habits.”

But despite the chorus of protest, alarm and disgust, nothing ever really seems to change. The catwalks continue to feature ultra skinny girls, while designers continue to cite the now worn-out justification that they make their clothes small to save money; if you’re spending hundreds of thousands on a fashion show, why would you make your clothes a size 16 when size 6 requires far less material?

But what if persistently using young, white, tiny girls to model clothes was bad for business? Ben Barry, a modelling agency CEO with a scholarly background, surveyed over 2,000 women while researching female representation in fashion and discovered that there is a real business case for models to look a bit less like concentration camp prisoners and a little bit more like their actual customer base.

Writing in Canadian Elle, Barry says: “My study found that women increased their purchase intentions by more than 200 percent when the models in the mock ads were their size. In the subgroup over size 6, women increased their purchase intentions by a dramatic 300 percent when they saw curvier models. Conversely, when women saw models who didn’t reflect their size, they decreased their purchase intentions by 60 percent, and women over size 6 dropped their purchase intentions by 76 percent.”

(It’s worth noting that US sizes are usually two below those in the UK, so the size 6 referred to above is likely a size 10 in the UK, and so on).

Dove’s real women advertising campaign was a financial hit

Beyond the issue of weight, Barry found that diversity is good for, yep, a completely diverse consumer base: “My results weren’t limited to the issue of size. Consumers increased their purchase intentions by over 175 percent when they saw models who reflected their age; in particular, women over the age of 35 increased their purchase intentions by 200 percent when they saw older models. When models didn’t reflect their age, consumers decreased their purchase intentions by 64 percent. Furthermore, black consumers were 1.5 times more likely to purchase a product advertised by a black model.”

Further details of Barry’s findings can be found in the Elle article, but I’ll leave you with this quote from the author: “In the business community, the general consensus is that there is a discrepancy between marketing and the market because fashion advertising fuels consumer demand by creating a craving that can’t be satisfied”.

The actor who printed his life on a business card

daniel — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:02:44 +0000

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Thomas F Wilson, who played Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future movies, has a unique way of dealing with over-curious fans

The internet is awash with an image of a card that actor Thomas F Wilson purportedly carries around with him. Sick of being asked questions about his most famous role – Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future trilogy – he simply hands it out to inquisitive fans and walks away. It’s a win-win: they get to discover facts such as “Michael J Fox is nice. I’m not in close contact with him”, “I made less money than you’d think” and “I don’t talk about the movies much because I’m busy with standup comedy and music performances.” In turn, he gets to save his breath. It’s an ingenious tactic and, as a way to escape your most notorious role, much less labour intensive than the efforts of other actors. Chief among these is Jennifer Grey who, in a desperate bid to extract herself from her phenomenal Dirty Dancing fame, slunk off for a drastic nose-job, ensuring that in future fans would only ever ask her: “Hey, aren’t you that woman from Dirty Dancing?” and then, immediately afterwards: “What happened to your face?”

Grey did this while remaining in the public eye. Joey Cramer, the little boy from 1986′s Flight of the Navigator, found it easier to retire from public life altogether. Despite various online efforts to track him down, sightings since his heyday have been sporadic at best. First he was spotted working in a small Canadian town’s sporting goods store, and then last summer the Canadian mounties issued a public warning for a fraudster who fitted his description. It’s unfortunate but, still, at least nobody shouts “See you later, navigator!” at him any more.

Of course, the worst thing anyone could do is make a career from embracing and living off their most famous role, as Corey Feldman has. He could have made a card, had a nosejob or disappeared from sight, but no. Instead he starred in a couple of witless cheapo sequels to The Lost Boys and ended up twirling around in a leotard on Dancing on Ice. Nobody should have to see that.

Celebrity

Stuart Heritage

The celebrity wig-wearing trend has to be good news

daniel — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:01:02 +0000

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If Adele, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj are proud to talk about their wigs, there’s hope for those of us with bad hair

Wigs seem to have gone mainstream. How? And why?

Orla McGarry, Belfast

As ever, Orla, this page’s most faithful correspondent, you prove yourself to be the perceptive voice of plain-speaking reason. No longer are wigs seen as the province of drag artists and women who inspire drag artists (ie country and western singers.) Following on from chunky platform heels and push-up bras, wigs are the latest accessory to be promoted from “niche, trashy and dubious” to “nigh a given”. Not for the average lady on the street, perhaps. Well, not yet. But certainly for young female celebrities who now talk about their wig habit quite openly and happily, which means wigs will probably be on sale in your local Claire’s Accessories by the end of the day.

Adele, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj: all young women, all proud to talk about their wigs. Adele (pictured, right) announced on US TV that she names her wigs (“This is June … This is Jackie …”) while according to a (somewhat dubious, admittedly) US magazine report, Beyoncé has more than $1m worth of wig action.

Obviously, female celebrities have long been boarding the wig train, from Tina Turner to Cher, but that’s slightly different. For a start, they were – and I say this nervously, quietly – a little older when their blatant wig-wearing began and they were appealing to a somewhat older demographic. Gaga et al are going straight for the teen jugular, an audience that generally tries to copy the look of its stars with more enthusiasm than one finds in the 30-plus crowd. Plus, not all of these women of previous eras were quite so obvious with their wig-wearing. I must confess I was all colour-me astonished when Beyoncé and Adele were revealed to be wig-wearers. I never thought I was seeing Tina Turner’s natural hair. I did think that about Adele.

This is what pleases me most about this development. Much has written over the past few years about how airbrushing in magazines gives people a false impression of how the human (the female human, generally) body should look, exacerbating some people’s dissatisfaction with their own figure.

This is all to the good, of course (the focusing on air-brushing, I mean, not the air-brushing itself) but one aspect has, in my esteemed, humble and professional opinion, been sorely neglected. Not all of us compare our body to those in magazines. Some of us compare our hair.

Oh, those of us with bad hair – how we suffer. Look, it’s not that we resent the attention given to those with poor body image. We’re happy your needs are being (relatively) catered to. But what about our needs, eh? Do you know the PAIN we endure every time we see photos of Princess Shiny Locks, aka Kate Middleton, swishing those tresses around with the carefree gaiety of someone who has never heard of words such as “thin patch” and “straggly ends”?

And I’m not only thinking of my needs (although obviously, I am mainly thinking of my needs.) The whole hair industry is so enormous and lavish now that even those who spend more time and money than is healthy thinking about our hair are a bit weirded out by it. I have one friend who spends at least six hours a month getting extensions taken in and out. I have another who once missed a flight because she realised at the airport she’d forgotten her hair straighteners and went home to fetch them. And then there’s one who has never been to a music festival because she wouldn’t be able to bring her hairdryer. These women are all smart, sane, low-maintenance ladies, hair issues aside.

How much correlation the hair industry has with celebrities’ hair is debatable. Contrary to what the Daily Mail seems to think, not everything a woman does is due to the influence of a celebrity. Yet I’m sure that the fact that there are so many female celebrities around with big glossy hair hasn’t exactly hurt the whole hair-care industry.

So for celebrities to admit that, actually, their hair doesn’t really look that luscious because it is, in fact, entirely synthetic, this may well be a Wizard of Oz moment. The great and powerful Oz is proven to be just a little old man behind a curtain or, in this case, a big ol’ wig named Jackie.

Post your questions to Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email ask.hadley@guardian.co.uk

Hadley Freeman

Key fashion trends of the season: Summer beauty reboot

daniel — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:02:46 +0000

It may not feel like it yet,but it’s officially summer – the clocks have gone forward, the sun is threatening to make an appearance so it’s time to start peeling away those comforting layers. But if getting yourself into a ‘summery’ frame of mind seems like a daunting task ease yourself into it gently with these deliciously tempting beauty treats…

Attracting men is child’s play, ladies – just grow up and act your age | Julie Burchill

daniel — Sun, 13 May 2012 06:06:15 +0000

Julie Burchill

Illustration: David Foldvari

When Alexandra Shulman, the editor of Vogue, announced recently that her magazine would no longer feature underweight or underage models, I can’t say I dropped my Krispy Kreme in sheer molten glee on the first count. I am not one of those fat birds who feels miserable because models are thin. Frankly, I feel more insulted by the idea that unless I see other fat birds in fashion magazines, I will be reduced to a snivelling wreck of a human being.

Whereas – prizing myself for qualities other than my appearance, as one should by the age of 52, unless one is a humourless bore actively seeking future mental health issues – I just don’t care. I wasn’t in the least surprised by that American survey earlier this year which claimed that black women have higher self-esteem than white women, even if they weigh more. As Victoria Coren pointed out in this newspaper, their lack of representation on the neurotic landscape of the fashion and beauty rackets might well in some way have contributed to their happiness – as opposed to leaving them grieving about their lack of role models among fashion models, as do the sad-sack plus-size sob sisters.

But what did surprise me about Shulman’s vow was the subsequent revelation in the press that about half of all models now start working between the ages of 13 and 16. That’s just plain kinky. And the knock-on effect of such extreme youth worship is spreading. Recently, a high-end women’s weekly magazine carried not one, but two pieces about the advisability of looking like a child if you want to attract a man.

I’ll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing. My husband, whom I have been with since he was 23, hits 40 this year and still often gets ID’d when he buys alcohol. But there’s a big difference between saying that youthfulness is sexually attractive and saying that babyhood is. Under the headline “Is This the Sexiest Ever Face?”, a headshot of the pretty model Karlie Kloss (19 years old – modelling since the age of 13) was analysed feature by feature with reference to a book by Robin Dunbar, called The Science of Love and Betrayal. Alongside the usual do-this-or-you’ll-die-a-spinster must-haves like fine brows and a delicate jaw, the magazine said: “For maximum sex appeal, your eyes should be small and be positioned halfway down your face (like a baby’s – don’t ask) as a way of indicating youth and fertility. Think Kate Moss, whose low-set eyes sit on a par with the tips of her ears.” A few flicks on, a five-age beauty feature entitled “Oh, Baby!” imparts the following wisdom (under a photo of the model-of-the-moment, Lindsey Wixson, who is 18, looks closer to eight and began modelling at 15): “Spring’s most flattering beauty trends are inspired by the first flushes of youth – think virgin hair, cherubic cheeks and plump, peachy skin”.

“First-flush balms” to restore adolescent lip colour, “baby-skin secrets” to cheat a “childhood complexion”, “virgin hair” dyes to evoke “the soft-to-the-touch, angelic quality of children’s hair” and the best blushers to “mimic the kind of fullness we have in childhood” are shamelessly flogged using the sort of descriptive imagery that wouldn’t seem out of place at a paedophiles’ convention.

We are told every day of the week, it sometimes seems, that the “sexualisation” of children is one of the major plagues of our age. If I have to read Reg Bailey, head of the Mothers’ Union, yakking on one more time about how Rihanna videos are robbing our children of their scabby-kneed innocence, I’ll hurl. Kiddies have always found an excuse to behave rudely behind the bike sheds; once the government has rated Rihanna 18, what does Reg plan to demand next? The banning of actual doctors and nurses, the whole darn sexy lot of them, because that’s the way brats since time immemorial have found an excuse for interfering with each other?

To me, the reverse mindset – the insistence by magazines for allegedly intelligent adults that grown women must strive to appear as childlike as possible if they are to be sexually attractive to men – is equally objectionable and wrong-headed. For a start, I just don’t believe that most men are attracted to toddlers; it’s a super-spin – “all men are kiddy-fiddlers” – on the old “all men are rapists” line/lie which really needs taking down.

Most heterosexual men merely want a woman above the age of consent to wash, show up, bring beer and strip naked. They are far from the harsh taskmasters, when it comes to female appearance, that they are routinely made out to be and the idea that they go about rejecting every woman who doesn’t resemble a small-eyed baby is very much belied by the number of men who are frankly desperate to get themselves a girlfriend. And, yes, there is a tradition of baby-faced sex symbols, from Marilyn Monroe to Mila Kunis – but there is an equally enduring strand of women held up as ideals of female beauty, from Liz Taylor to Megan Fox, whose vampish appeal is based on anything but the appearance of innocence.

But if designers want to show their stupid, overpriced clothes on models who look like boys or anorexics, the rag-mag-hags will pimp out the appropriate-looking kids to them. And if you hold boys and anorexics up as beauty ideals that grown women should demean and distort and damage themselves to copy, it’s just a baby step to saying the same about little girls.

There are bad times just around the corner, during which women’s hard-earned economic freedom will suffer severe body blows – sticking your finger in your gob, simpering like a halfwit and hoping that some Mr Big Daddy figure is going to come along and take care of his little princess seems to be a recipe for disaster which, frankly, a child of five – “virgin hair’, “cherubic cheeks” and all – could see the folly of.

We all shuddered with amazed disbelief when the brilliant photographer Polly Borland published her studies of “adult babies” some years back. But give or take a nappy or two, is there really that much difference between this and the idea that women need to look like little girls if they are to find adult love?