We interrupt our normal broadcast to tell you that international wrinkle oppressors Olay have hit a new low with their latest advertising campaign.

“Not ready to take drastic measures for firmer skin yet?” coos the voiceover, whilst an unknown doctor examines an indeterminably aged woman’s immobile face for signs of insubordination ageing.

I know it’s fairly standard for beauty advertising to make women feel horrible and inadequate in order to sell them products which at best do very little.  But it has to be a new low when they start referring to plastic surgery as if it were inevitable.  When did ‘growing old gracefully’ stop being the norm?  Stop being preferable to mutilating our own faces?

The image above (genuine Olay material from the Boots website) proves how far removed Olay are from any reality of what women look like.  That poor woman has been airbrushed so much she resembles one of those eerie waxworks from a knock-off eastern European Madame Tussauds.  Unfortunately, its ridiculousness makes it no less harmful.  Olay’s has always been one of the loudest voices in clamouring chorus demanding women waste increasing amounts of their time, money and energy defying the laws of physics on their faces.  This crap has been holding us back for years.  Enough is enough.

Olay, I reject your vision of the future, and hope that as I grow older I have the confidence to wear my lines as badges of honour: proof that I lived, loved, achieved and aged outside of an hermetically sealed pod.  Ladies, let’s boycott!

To view the advert and swear at your own computer screen, go here: