AGE 16: You sometimes use your mum’s tanning oil, and you splash water on your face before special occasions.

AGE 18: You sometimes moisturise. Now that you’re 18, you drink roughly 6 nights a week and leave your makeup on all week, tidying it up around the edges in the morning. You drank a glass of water in a restaurant once while waiting for your actual drink.

AGE 21: You sometimes wear sunscreen in the summer, and you drink water when you’re playing team sports. You got some of those Kmart makeup wipes to remove your makeup the morning after a huge one, and you sneak some of your flatmate’s face cleanser in the shower once a week after your bender. Foundation smooths onto your skin nicely and stays put all day.

AGE 25: You read in a magazine that you should be cleansing, toning and moisturising, so you went out and got the cleanser, toner, and moisturiser, but you just can’t seem to get around to using it every day. You sometimes use the moisturiser, but mainly on your elbows. You now need primer because your foundation seems to make your skin flaky. Yesterday you ate a piece of fruit and felt like Miranda Kerr.

AGE 28: Shit, is that a crow’s foot? You start worriedly asking all your gay friends where they get their Botox, then defeatedly slump into a vodka when you realise that you can’t afford regular treatments. Vowing to turn your life around, you wear sunscreen and a wide-brimmed straw hat to the music festivals this summer, but mainly just because it’s on trend. Your water intake has also increased, but mainly just because your drug intake has also increased. You start to steal your flatmate’s facial cleanser more than once a week. This has strained your relationship somewhat.

AGE 30: FUCK. You begin to withdraw from all summer events, in the desperate hopes that if the sun can’t see you, IT CAN’T AGE YOU. You try to eat your “2 + 5 a day” but quit after a fortnight because tacos and gin is life. You start scrutinising your mother closely, because your sole comfort is that there is apparently not much you can do to change your skin as “it’s all genetics anyway”. Your mum still looks good for her age, considering her 30+ year dart habit and propensity to travel to places every year to lie in the sun for a month without protection. This cheers you up, and when the photos go up from this weekend’s clubbing session, you decide that “the old gal’s still got it” (regardless of the fact that everyone looks even-toned, smooth and flawless in club photos, it’s called post-processing, look it up hun). You still leave your makeup on all night.

AGE 32: Your alarm jolts you awake at 3am. From 3am to 7am, you wearily cleanse, tone and moisturise, while rubbing caffeine treatment under your eye bags. Your bathroom is a showroom of lotions and potions (let’s be honest, most of these are lube) and you are now a slave to your routine. You apply SPF15 moisturiser, followed by a broad spectrum dry-feel SPF50 facial moisturiser. You must wait for this to seep into your elderly pores. Once it does, you then apply primer, then a foundation with SPF15. You go about your day, expending extra effort to make zero facial expressions, because you need to stop these forehead train tracks immediately. Sometimes you tie your hair into such a tight

high ponytail that you can’t move your eyebrows, even if you wanted to. Again, you feel like Miranda Kerr. You force yourself to drink 5 litres of water. You have to pee every ten minutes. You consider giving up alcohol, but you simply can’t because it’s your one comfort in this life. You get home at 6, but you are unable to have dinner with your partner, as you must hasten to the bathroom. You cleanse and tone three times to ensure all makeup is removed. You apply a retinoid cream, and sit with it on for an hour. Shortly before bed, you apply a full-strength retinoic acid. Your face burns. It’s alright, it’s just your top layer of skin eroding off. This is good. This is fresh and youthful. Feeling like a saint, you slide into bed. You are turning back time and Cher would be proud.

Love, Akika xoxoxoxoxoxox