Face like a partially melted candle? There’s an exercise

Will I ever look as elegant as Audrey Hepburn? Ask me once I’ve finished licking my nostrils and pinching my jowls

A brilliant author and artist recently opened my eyes to the wonderland of jaw exercise videos. Smiling women in pastel-coloured vest tops chew the air, stretch their lips and tilt their tongues towards their perfectly formed noses. Angry men in blue polo shirts push tennis balls into their chests. People in medical scrubs try to lick their nostrils. Women with perms pinch at their jowls as if they are trying to crimp a pasty. It’s wild out there.

Now, I worked in consumer media and advertising long enough (for more than 30 seconds) to know that pretty much anything that says it can change your face, or life, or relationship, will do nothing of the sort. In my heart, I recognise that my face is my face, a slowly collapsing combination of genetics and expressions that has changed very little since I was about three. Look at my first nursery portrait – in which I am sitting in a pink nylon jumper in front of a marble-effect backdrop – and you can see 39-year-old Nell smiling back at you. Yet the promise of a new, sharp, Hepburn-esque jawline, created from nothing more than a five-minute routine at my desk, is so tantalising – so deeply penetrates a lifelong desire to look like someone else – that I am struggling to resist.