Youth wins by a neck

Welcome to my world Kylie, I know exactly how you feel! Forty-four-year-old Kylie is having that horrible mirror anxiety that strikes most women her age. She claims she is horrified by her make-up free face in the mornings and sometimes feels she looks more like a Spielberg special effect. Her reflection makes her want to squeal, ’Who is that?’ she claims.

I must say I’m secretly delighted that even the lovely Kylie is experiencing mirror anxiety. According to a recent survey 90 percent of women in their 40s and 50s suffer from what experts call Mid-life Mirror Angst Syndrome - an aversion to looking at themselves in the mirror.

I began to experience this last year, up until then I was OK with my reflection it was familiar and definitely me, then it happened, I woke up one morning and someone had taken away the invisible scaffolding that had apparently been holding up my neck. I actually did a comedy double-take in the mirror when I noticed slight creping on my throat. It’s minor, but it’s definitely there and in some lights looks much worse than others. I have now developed a neck obsession. I find myself taking surreptitious peeks at the necks of women of a certain age, especially those dated to the same decade as myself. I’ve noticed friends my age have taken to wearing pretty scarves and polo neck sweaters in an effort to hide what the passage of time is ruthlessly doing to their necks.

‘It doesn’t matter what you do, your neck gives you away’ I used to hear my mother comment. I had absolutely no concept then what she was talking about. In my 20s and 30s I never once took any notice of another woman’s neck, it’s only when it begins to happen to you that you develop an insatiable thirst for neck ogling. It has become quite a time consuming hobby of mine and I loathe to admit that whilst watching the marvellous Miss Minogue on Rod Stewart’s Christmas special I was delighted when the camera angle was directed up at her as she stood on stage crooning into Rod’s face.

I could see Kylie’s neck from beneath, an angle most celebs of a certain age rarely reveal. Were my eyes deceiving me or did I detect a slight sagging on the Minogue throatage? Quick as a flash I put on my glasses (rubbish eye sight is another hateful acquisition that comes with middle age) and got close up to our large television screen, and paused and rewound Kylie’s neck angles.

Sure enough, someone had also removed her invisible neck scaffolding too, probably in the night when she’d least expected it. As I surveyed the evidence of age touching even this perfect pop pixie’s neck I found myself wearing the smug smile of Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle when she persuades someone to have a cup of tea. Kylie is just a year younger than me; it was comforting to know that even beautiful, millionaires are not immune to time’s neck sabotage. No doubt it will be just a matter of time before Kylie, like a lot of women in their 40s and beyond, has to give in to compensatory dressing. Gone will be the low necklines, in will come chokers, scarves and polo-necks.

In my youth I didn‘t notice my neck. Never once did I survey my unlined neck in the mirror and admire it. Now I have taken to placing my thumbs beneath my chin and pulling up the skin in an instant neck lift just to see what difference a tight neck makes, and it makes a huge difference!

According to experts the neck starts to go at the age of 43 and that’s that, there’s nothing can be done, there is of course the choice of having cosmetic surgery but for the ordinary woman that is costly and let’s face it, pretty scary! No matter how much money I had I would be too terrified to undergo surgery to make myself look younger, what if it all went wrong and you ended up looking like the bride of Wildenstein (Joyce Wildenstein was married to a plastic surgeon and reportedly spent £2 million on cosmetic surgery in an effort to keep her husband, unfortunately the results were horrifying and they divorced when his attentions switched to a 19-year-old lady).

I’m afraid my neck is destined to hang there in all it’s glory, giving away my age like the rings inside the cut bark of a redwood tree. I’m too chicken to do anything about my developing turkey neck. Though I will continue to dream of my once snow-white unlined throat. I will also persist in my neck envy as I ogle every young whippersnapper I see with a perfect yet unappreciated throatage. When it comes to the beauty stakes, youth wins by a neck!

Many say looks don’t matter, that it’s personality that counts, but by God it matters when it’s your looks you see starting to contort in the mirror, your eye begins to travel over people to suss out how they’re aging too. Many people simply won’t care about their maturing looks but I’m with Oscar Wilde who quipped: ‘It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearance.’