Iknow we are supposed to be rejecting everything we stood for last year, sloughing off our desiccated, used-up 2023 selves to emerge sparkling fresh, dewy and morally superior, but, I don’t know, seasonal self-loathing seems so … vigorous. If you are anything like me (I pray you aren’t), you feel listless, lumpen and broke. Plus, have you looked outside?
Before today’s vampire facials and snail-mucous moisturisers, there were arsenic “complexion wafers” promising a “deliciously clear complexion”. Renaissance women used deadly nightshade to make their eyes look bigger, and cat poo to remove hair. One Roman remedy for blemishes involved grinding up the intestines “of a small land crocodile which feeds only on the most fragrant flowers”, which does sound like something you might now find for sale on Goop.