Mama Malone

Malone slaps on the SPF but considers Botox too

I’m going on holiday! It’s been eight years since I’ve had a beach holiday. Going to Spain in March doesn’t count, as it was only hot enough to wear
a bikini for about 34 minutes, and that was on the day we were leaving.

www.130cartons.com

There was no sunbathing – that’s not a holiday, that’s a trip! This time it’s going to be scorchio! I need to buy sun cream. I know how much sun my skin can take in Brighton before it burns, but in peak Spanish summer temperatures? I have no idea. Do I buy SPF 15?

In right-on Brighton I feel perhaps I might get arrested at the checkout if
I buy anything lower than SPF 15, judged as some sort of trashy sun junkie, receiving looks of scorn from other shoppers: “Do you know what the sun does?” Er, it makes plants grow? I know I need to be aware of skin damage but I’d like a little tan… Maybe I’ll buy my sun cream on arrival where they’ll be loads of northerners calling me a pansy for not just slapping on olive oil.

To be fair I do use factor 50 on my face! But that’s a vanity and logic thing; I figure if ageing is 99 per cent due to sun damage then I may as well cover my face up now rather than inject Botox later.

“If ageing is 99 per cent due to sun damage then I may as well cover up now rather than inject Botox later”

Recently, while going out with a younger man, I did for the first time consider Botox. I have never thought I would want the stuff, but hanging out with his young mates with their glowing skin made me think that maybe I did need to keep preserved a bit longer… Googling ‘Botox’ was an eye opener, no pun intended – well, maybe a little one.

There are so many different anti-ageing treatments! It’s not just Botox you can have injected but also collagen and hyaluronic acid! Did you know that Botox, or Botulinum toxin as it’s known medically, is one of the most acutely toxic substances known?!

It’s derived from Clostridium botulinum, which you remember from Home Ec’ classes at school as something you didn’t want in your sausages. How vain am I going to get that I wouldn’t mind Botulinum injected millimetres from my brain? It says on t’interweb (so it must be right) that it’s only deadly if inhaled or taken intravenously.

Knowing my luck, I’d be allergic to Botox; I’d start off with a wrinkle and end up with a red rashy face or be the first person to die from it. I seem to be becoming vainer as I age, so I may succumb to the promises of this toxin’s eternal beauty. If I have it done, I will let you know if my face falls off.

My shopping basket contains SPF 50, 15, and some fake tan… which suggests ‘educated about sun damage but would like to look a little orange all the same.’