Hair

Argentina is supposed to rate second only to Brazil for the pressure on people to look beautiful. I don't know, there are some very good looking people (men and women) here but they tend to be both rich and young. As people get older or poorer the level of attractiveness goes down.

Despite this, advertising abounds with products on improving your skin, reducing or removing your cellulite and, most of all, having fantastic hair. Like many other nations, there are shops solely dedicated to cosmetics (with none of the workaday stuff we all need like soap, deodorant etc), all of which seem to do a roaring trade. To be honest I'm a bit intimidated by them - and the lack of Spanish doesn't help.

In addition there is Farmacity, which is like Superdrug, for all your everyday needs. And here's the funny thing, every store has shelves upon shelves of shampoo and conditioner. Just about every combination is catered for... except mine (fine, flyaway in need of volume and getting thinner by the day). It was fine until recently, I could get the Pantene ProV which adds volume but they've just redesigned the packaging and my preferred combination doesn't seem to be available. So I've had to resort to a local brand - I'm now on my second 'type' - I have no idea if it's what I should be using but the word volume is somewhere on the label so let's keep our fingers crossed.

Oh, and I've got to get my hair cut again. Do you have any idea just how traumatic this will be for me? well, do you?