No 'miracle' cellulite cream

Both the beauty and the fitness industries like to make out that, when it comes to the body, all things are possible. Hate your wrinkles? Apply this little pot of magic, nightly. Despise your tummy? Do more sit-ups.

Once upon a time, when I was very young and daffy, I might have believed this nonsense (as a teenager, I used to indulge in a whole load of preposterous exercises designed to prevent the development of a double chin).

These days, I know better. I will be 35 next week and, if I have learned nothing else in life, I at least know that some bodily flaws are entirely resistant to change.

Caught in front of a full-length mirror, you learn to sigh lightly at the bad bits, but always to leave the bathroom giving thanks for your full lips, or your big, blue eyes, or (if really desperate) your incredibly delicate ankles.

Still, even the old and the wise are susceptible to promises, however ludicrous. I am in possession of two very wobbly thighs. They began quivering like jellies when I reached puberty, and have been that way pretty much ever since, even though I am a size 10 and spend two hours of every week dashing around my local park.

Even when I was a student, and a desperately skinny seven stone, they were - in disarming contrast to the rest of my twig-like form - squidgy to the touch, like warm bread dough. As a result, when so-called "miracle cures" for cellulite hit the shelves, I am often to be found skulking shamefacedly in Boots, however much I may smirk publicly at all the silly pseudo-science involved.

So yes, I, too, own a pretty turquoise tube of PerfectSlim, for which the nation's women are, apparently, going quite barmy. It claims to firm and tone skin within eight days and reduce "dimpled skin" within four weeks. I bought it six weeks ago, in preparation for a holiday in Italy. At first, I took my £10.99 investment very seriously indeed, and assiduously rubbed the stuff in, as instructed, twice daily.

After a few weeks, I got bored. For one thing, I couldn't see that it was making the slightest bit of difference (patience is not one of my virtues); for another, it was incredibly sticky, like honey.

The tube is still there, behind all the other potions to which, periodically, I am so devoted; perhaps I will give it another go. The only trouble is, every time I look at it, I hear the voice of my science-teacher mother somewhere-at the back of my head. Blobbiness of the thighs is a genetic and evolutionary legacy, and all the over-the-counter comforts in the world can't change that, however alluring they appear. If you want to feel pampered, fine, just don't rush out and buy smaller clothes in the expectation that you are about to drop a dress size.

Most women are living for the day when science really does make a cottage-cheese breakthrough. In the meantime, here is some advice from one who knows.

First, the only true way to make "cellulite" look better is to cover it with a suntan (a fake one, if you are dermatologically sound).

Second, it is boring and neurotic to care too much about things over which you have only a modicum of control.

If your boyfriend thinks you are sexy - and I bet he does - who cares if some bits are bigger than others?