Invasion of The Skincare Samples

I am decluttering my skincare. I think of myself as someone who is pretty parlous on the skincare regime. I pass scarey women with faux alabaster skin in John Lewis who ask me if I use a primer and I genuinely pride myself on the knowledge that I have no knowledge. I have not a clue what they are talking about and I try very hard to make it my business not to know. Not because they are not talking sense - after all, look at their faux alabaster skin! I could have alabaster skin like theirs if only I used a primer, whatever that is, or BB cream, whatever the hell that is, instead of my ageing, increasingly knackered looking sunken under eye shadows. No, it isn't that I don't need the stuff. It is that I don't  NEED the stuff. I might need it on my face, but I don't need it on my shelves. Skincare has a creepy way of building up on you. One minute BB cream is this week's must have. The next, someone somewhere has stumbled on a product made of sheep's urine that can take years off your double chin and the next, all the Sunday supplements are screaming about it, and you rush out and buy it because you don't want to miss out, and it gets put next to the BB cream, and you use it slavishly for a week, and then you read an article about an amazing new thing made out of hairs from a bee's bottom, and, well, it's Groundhog Day. Well I won't go there. No siree. I am happy with my cleanser, my sometimes toner for when I use particularly manky mascara that won't come off in one swipe, and my moisturiser, and frankly I don't hear any complaints. Nobody leans over in the tube and says to me, lady, you REALLY need to go home and finish your skincare regime, you look like one of the Three Witches. Nobody flinches when they get on the train and catch my eye, do they? Or if they do, they have sufficient social grace to hide it. So when I go to do my semi annual clearout of my skincare shelves I tell myself with much self congratulation that this is going to be a quick and easy chore. But  as I clean surplus talc off the bathroom cupboard shelf and remove accumulated toothpaste and spittle gunge from the cup, something catches my eye. I bend down and find a cardboard box. It is full, literally brimming, with skincare samples. I realise that I never ever say no when offered a sample skincare sachet or bottle in a store. I bring them home, put them in the cardboard box, and do not look at them ever again. I decide to do an audit. After all, I travel a lot for work, and samples are perfect for one or two night stopovers. Let's see. I need mini cleanser, toner and moisturiser. Anything else is useless.  Except maybe if there's shampoo. Or deodorant. But there will be loads of those, right? After  2 hours or so, I have two piles. One is tiny. That is the pile of samples  I might have a use for. There are maybe three sachets and two bottles in this pile. The second resembles Ben Nevis. This is the pile of samples whose function I simply do not understand. It is not that I do not have a use for them. It is that I have not a clue what they do, or where they go, or why I would want to add precious time to my daily skincare regime applying them. I pick one up. Age defying eye serum. Age defying. That has kind of a Star Wars theme to it. I can imagine opening the tube, applying the cream to my crowsfeet, and as I do, the cream screams, I DEFY you, signs of ageing on my faux alabaster skin! I pick up another. Pomegranate pore scrub. Or there is rosepetal serum. Why is it called a serum, anyway? Aren't serums things they give you in action movies to make you bionic, or get you to tell the baddie things you don't want him to know? Another one: UV protection nasal enhancer. Is that just a posh term for brownnosing?  I contemplate the mountain of sachets. I suppose I could donate them to a really posh old peoples' home. All this anti-ageing stuff should go down well. I can't see Oxfam taking the pore scrubs. Is there a charity that distributes complex skincare for the underprivileged? I make a decision. I take the cardboard box full of alien freebies minus the small pile, I take it to my bin, and upend it. The cardboard box goes into the recycling. It is probably more valuable than all of its former contents. I return to the bathroom. I find a small cardboard box. I put the remaining three sachets and two bottles in it. There. Plenty of space for the next assault of twenty first century skincare that I don't understand and which will transform me into a Stepford Wife if only I would open them up and use the damn things.