Fiona McCade: No facelifts for natural beauties

IF I die before my husband, he has my permission to marry again. When I told him this, he made a list – perhaps a little too quickly – of all the celebrity females he’ll pursue once he’s free.

British actress Kristin Scott Thomas. Picture: PA

Top of his list is the famously lovely Kristin Scott Thomas.

Everybody thinks KST is lovely, don’t they? Except, perhaps, for Kristin herself, who has just told an interviewer that, at the tender age of 53, she feels like “an old ragbag”.

The problem started when she went to the Cannes Film Festival in May.

“I got such a shock,” she said. “I saw lots of my contemporaries there this year, all looking so beautiful and gorgeous and healthy … and I just thought, ‘Maybe it’s time to do something about it, like a facelift’.”

No, Kristin, no! Stop right there, me lass. Don’t you know that you’re one of the very few poster girls for truly natural beauty? If you succumb to the knife, there’s no hope for the rest of us.

There are a great many fortysomethings out here who are looking to women like you to show us the way; to prove to us that we don’t have to cut ourselves up to look good as we get older.

If you crumble, then there’s only Helen Mirren left. Sorry, but I simply can’t let you start thinking this kind of dangerous stuff, or Team Natural is going to go under.

Ordinary women need good, high-profile role-models, or we might forget that graceful ageing is possible. I was waiting in the car the other day, and I started – as you do – to examine my imperfections in the vanity mirror.

At first, all I could see was wrinkles, but when I pulled them around a bit, I wondered if I could just get that fold of skin removed … and that bit lifted … and those bits hooked around the back of my ears and some good, sturdy knots tied in them …perhaps I might look a tiny bit like I did ten years ago. From behind. In the dark.

Oh, it was tempting, and I felt myself flirting with the Dark Side. If I had the money – which thankfully I don’t – it’s quite possible that, despite knowing in my heart of hearts that the only true anti-ageing treatment is death, and that all resistance to the passage of time is ultimately futile, I would be stupid enough to get something done.

But I really don’t want to, and I don’t think Kristin wants to, either. The trouble is, even though she still looks pretty darn good to us, I can see why she would lament the passing of the apogee of her beauty.

When you’ve been so conspicuously gorgeous, it must be hard to come to terms with the fact that you’re not turning quite as many heads as you once did.

She has recently noticed that: “When you’re walking down the street, you get bumped into, people slam doors in your face – they just don’t notice you. Somehow, you just vanish. It’s a cliché, but men grow in gravitas as they get older, while women just disappear.”

The real cliché is how many women feel this way long before they reach the age of 53. In fact, it’s a testament to KST’s looks that she has only just realised that middle-aged women often become invisible, but it’s still not a good enough reason to have your forehead pulled back and tucked into the nape of your neck.

Women like Kristin are the examples that will keep women like me on the straight and narrow, so I can’t allow her to fall prey to her insecurities, however understandable they may be.

The fact is, Kristin, you will always be beautiful. Even now that most dazzling sheen of your pulchritude has started to fade, you are still stunning. You will never lose your elegance and poise, or the intellect that illuminates them.

If these things matter less to society than trout pouts and facefuls of fillers, then that’s society’s problem, not yours. Please don’t give in. Please stay real.

But if my pleading can’t persuade you to keep on ageing naturally, how about this: Your would-be second husband says, if you get a facelift, you’re off his list.