I have a routine and I have had it for years. Beat my face and finish with a lip-liner and killer lipstick. My colour of choice has always been nude or scarlet red; sexy, bold and confident. I have had the same tone for years and always feel Oscar ready when I leave the house. Countless You-tube vlogs have shown us how to perfect our pouts, even Kylie Jenner, the Kardashian’s youngest protege, has become a Billionaire off the back of this sticky, gloopy, lacquer that I smear on my face. Notably Kylie admitted that she lacked confidence due to her smaller lips and sought to find confidence by injecting them with lip-fillers. Maybe souped-up sexuality is actually less sexy than women think?

As I get a little older and observe the people I see when I stroll through London, I notice the difference between those who affiliate with the middle class who wear little or no make-up and those aspiring social climbers who feel the need to sex up their look every single day.

This is even more evident on my morning commute. I spend around an hour getting ready and have always silently judged those women on the tube fumbling with their make-up bags on the packed, dirty carriage, whilst balancing pallets and brushes on their laps as they publicly got ready for work, while I, like a Stepford wife left the house prompt and without a hair out of place. In recent days I have grown to realise that my look is almost unattainable if you have a busy life. I am lucky. No responsibilities, hitting 40 and the only things I worry about is ‘Brexit’ and how i’m going to shift the few pounds I gained during my lazy summer sabbatical.

On dates I like to ooze sexuality smearing red lipstick across my kiss, (my passive aggressive amour against the World) but when I watched Millionaire Match-maker Patti Stranger say in one episode “the red-lipstick girl never gets the guy’ I wondered whether she had a point? Far from being sexy, I wondered whether it denoted a smack of desperation that also emphasised a lack of confidence? I took my lipstick off this evening and really looked at my full, beautiful lips for the first time and thought the naked reality was far more confident and honest than paying lip-service to my possibly dated red lipstick look. So tomorrow I will experiment with a fresher more natural me and leave the lipstick, the sexed-up, high voltage pout and the slight lack of confidence at home with the knowledge that I’m finally feeling a little more assured.