You beauty! The cabinet of wonders

I am a fool. I drown in moisturiser, roll around in serum, spread eye cream on (dark rye) toast, drink toner on ice, double cleanse with religious zeal. But daily SPF?

I have been a fool to believe that the weedy promise of Factor 15 protection in my tinted moisturiser will deflect the sun and its ravages. I thought I was doing enough, but a couple of speckles on my cheekbone have persuaded me to (metaphorically) step away from the light.

SPFs good and proper tend to be unwieldy, greasy — or, at worst, chalky. And that beachy smell is cheery when you’re in a bikini but sickly at 7am on a dark morning when you’re fighting to wake up, rushing to get out and overheating with the pace of it all.

So, bonjour Chanel Précision UV Essentiel: a tiny matt white bottle, a milkily silken texture, immediately absorbable formula and muscular Factor 50 protection. Now that’s more like it.

The bottle is small but very little goes very far so I use it on the back of my hands as well as my face. I had seen it before, floating around the make-up bags of beautiful friends, and I had wondered. But I was a fool. Dear Sun, you know how I feel about you, how I have always felt about you, but the time has finally come to set some boundaries. It’s over between us. You have done enough.

Chanel Précision UV Essentiel SPF50, £38, at houseoffraser.co.uk