Imogen Edwards-Jones is middle-aged, not middle-of-the-road. This week: the quest for a perkier, more youthful bust takes her in an unexpected direction
Perhaps the only comfort about the heinous, hideous, jaw-grinding appallingness of ageing is that over the years one gets used to knowing where your rubbish bits are. The muffin top, the bingo wing, the cottage cheese inner thigh. After a while you just turn a blind eye. I mean I've always known I have a bit of a gut. It’s the crisps, the vodka and my inability to turn down a plate of chips AND mayonnaise. Sadly it has nothing to do with being middle aged and slowly turning into my sofa, because I vividly remember that at the age of 24 a Heathrow security guard took me aside, muttering: “Excuse me, Sir, could you remove your money belt?” I didn’t care about the “Sir” as that was easily explained. I was a little bit angry and in a cropped Andrea Dworkin phase, what can I say? But the money belt! The MONEY BELT?! I wasn’t wearing a sodding money belt – I had just eaten a bit of lunch!
So over the years I have got used to the gut, the fat ankles, the wings and the fact that my bottom is a size 12 and my top is a 14. Stuff happens…. and at least having ginger Boris Becker eyelashes means people can’t see your mole hair.
So when I turned up at the glamorous EF Medispa for a Body Lift Peel on Chelsea’s King’s Road I was more than a little floored. “So,” said Zuly, the very attractive Venezuelan therapist, looking me up and down in the unforgiving strip-light. “What part of you do you want to lift and peel? What bit do you want to change, zone in on?”
Having thought the peel was a whole body wrap, where I could lie back, have a snooze and loose three inches, I had not thought to worry about a specific area of skin that needed upgrading. Suddenly there was a whole new level of paranoia open to me. The skin on my hands? My stomach? My thighs? I even had a Kardashian thought about my backside? Finally I shrugged. “Where do most people get it done?” “Their breasts or their back,” replied Zuly, who I could tell was beginning to feel a little sorry for me. “Their back? Who has a peel on their back?” “A woman who is wearing a backless dress to a party?” said Zuly. “Gosh,” I replied, contemplating the life of a woman who not only has backless dresses, but also the wherewithal to peel her back before she wears them AND a party to go to afterwards.
“Let’s do the tits,” I said. “I always have them out.” “Right,” agreed Zuly and went in search of her creams.
The Cosmedix range of creams and potions used in the peel are all plant-based and designed to cause minimum irritation to the skin. First the skin of the décolletage is cleansed and then the peel is applied. Five painless minutes later it is removed and a delicious Cherry Balm rescue remedy is used to calm the whole area down. The procedure takes about ½ an hour and it is a couple of days before the full effect of the peel is revealed.
But when it does it is fantastic. And I really mean it. It works! My skin is now soft and smooth and a little bit showbiz shiny. There is an overall dewy effect of dare-I-say-it… youth. I, well, my boobs look as if they belong to an oligarch’s mistress who resides, mostly horizontal, covered in unctions, on a yacht.
I want more, damn it! I’d definitely like to do my legs, my tummy, my arse, crikey I’d even do my back, if only I could find a frock and a party to go to.