The bare essentials work

RIGHT around this time of year I get ready for my beauty New Year’s resolutions: take care of my hair, wear less mascara, defuzz my legs more often.

Generally, it doesn’t go so well because grooming can be a bore, and I usually find something more interesting to do instead — like alphabetising my book collection or trying to develop an interest in ornithology. But the one beauty resolution I actually enjoy is tackling the almighty amount of rubbish I collect from one of the year to the next. I’m talking 12 bottles of nail polish; six bottles of hair oil; a total of eight foundations (randomly placed in bags, suitcases, drawers, and, bizarrely, even in a filing cabinet) and six nude lipglosses that all look pretty much the same.

It is entirely possible to do much better with much less stuff. Apart from the fact that these days the environment almost audibly moans every time another bottle of shower gel is bought, all the products just create an unholy amount of clutter.