Face cleansing after a late night

We get onto the subject of how best to clean one's face. 'The Eve Lom range is absolutely the best', one radiant girl offers.

'Expensive, but amazing. You melt a little bit of it in your hands, massage it in all over and then use a muslin cloth to take it all off'.

Yes, but a facial at 5 in the morning? We all guffaw at the thought. A couple of baby wipes is usually all most of us can manage.

I must admit that the idea of warm balm and hot cloths to pamper your post-club face does sound nice- if only it were done by someone else's hands!

Last night (or this morning, should I say) at 5.15am, I decided to apply one of those pore strips to my nose: the kind that lift all the gunk from your pores when peeled off.

Looking at one's skin closely in a magnifying mirror is never a good idea at the best of times. Of course, I fell asleep with the thing still stuck on. It had hardened to cardboard when I awoke five hours later to the sound of the torrential rain outside.

It's at times like these that I'm glad there's no boyfriend to witness such indignities.

A far better idea is Clarins' Pore Refining Serum in its nifty mint green bottle. Imbued with some twig or another, it claims to cleanse and tighten enlarged pores, and it does seem to make a difference.

Anyway, can someone please tell why I'm still dealing with oily skin aged 29?? Now I've got bigger things to worry about than during my teenage years- including my escalating credit-card bill- I could do without spots!