Liz Earle skincare - one answer to the BBC's ageist policies

Liz Earle

My current fixation on Bid TV's Peter Simon has drawn me into the utterly addictive world of TV shopping channels. Most of the male hosts probably have Venus conjunct Sun in their horos - imbuing them with a cockless cosiness you don't often find in your average house-trained cock-cunter - while the female presenters are a standard cut-out from the womanly catalogues: only US comic Joan Rivers on QVC breaks the lady-like mould when she's there flogging her bling. She just about avoids saying, 'Buy my All Heart Charm Bracelet, you motherfuckers.'

Speaking of QVC, Liz Earle MBE was on this week, queen of botanical elixirs, imported from her HQ on the Isle of Wight. Her company is one of the island's largest employers with over 350 people on the payroll. Profits: a secret. This week she had her own four-day QVC 'mini-series', and it was incredibly successful. One skin potions package alone sold 9,000 items in two hours which, at a unit price of about £26, grossed nearly a quarter-of-a-million quid.

In another life, Liz and I were colleagues on a monthly glossy. She was as lovely then as she appears now, a vision of (her fave phrase) 'dewy freshness', a wonderful walking advert for her ethically sourced, multi-award winning products. She must be incredibly rich. So I was surprised when she revealed on QVC that her central heating doesn't come on until 5.45am in the winter. Something like that keeps one grounded, and certainly helps to maintain dermal hydration. I always say.

Liz I think has one answer to the sexist ageism rampant in our world, and at the BBC in particular. If the crumbling male bastard presenters must stay on our screens (while female peers of similar age are dumped by young female bosses because they look too old) then demand they use Liz Earle's youthifying skincare creams and lotions. Liz herself looks nothing like her 47-ish years (I'd put her at 37). At least then they'd be able to boast a dewy freshness to match that of replacement eye candy female colleagues. There'd be a sudden breakout of youngness!

These aging male TV hosts shouldn't fear nancification through beauty maintenance regimes - I know how conformist these types are. As Liz has observed, 'A whole new generation of boys and young men are growing up, seeing men in magazines and on the red carpet who are obviously taking care of their skin, so I think the whole stigma surrounding men making an effort with skin is ebbing away.' Bang on the zeitgeist.

Click here to be on trend, TV boys.