Isn’t she lovely?

The pursuit of beauty is the mission of every Jane Bond. From depilatories, to light-diffusing face "tints," to the right eyebrow and access to the private number of a sober hairdresser — anything and everything will be sought and done just so a girl can look in the mirror for five seconds and feel that everything is going to be OK sans Prozac.

Ever since I scooped up a stump of discarded opalescent neon pink lipstick from my mother’s trash bin a good 18 years ago, I saw how a few dabs of wax can transform my face. It’s every woman’s escape from the world of the ordinary and prosaic, into the world of champagne and good times. This is thanks to some lavender-scented, anti-aging cream with a formula so complex, it makes any plain Jane feel like a tres chic Marie Curie. Now that vanity is becoming the attitude du- jour, it’s easier for all beauty junkies to come out of their granola closets and revel in the hedonistic world of cosmeticasia.

Self-love is the newest marketing tool for hawking anything from sperm-enriched night cream (available in Japan and probably scraped from motel sheets) to clear lipgloss that promises to change anyone’s life.

Nevertheless, it is still possible for beauty to turn ugly. The well-meaning Isabel Granada just wanted to let her loving fans know that she was blessed, among many other things, with Skyway-long lashes. So she enhanced it with Play-doh and became an arachnophobe’s nightmare.

There is also the hideous rendition of the millennium Bardot. She uses lipgloss that dares to creep over the lipline, trying in vain to achieve that pouty look and instead reaps several pouty frowns.

I, too, have committed my share of harlequin disasters — street-marker-size blush streaks to matte brown (as in lupa brown) lipstick — it’s easy to fall into the trap of Glamourama’s avant-garde looks.

Fixing one’s face and body is not synonymous to gift-wrapping oneself. The act of doing so — as every girl will attest — can be one of the most therapeutic and exhilarating rituals. From patting on cellulite-eating body gel to dabbing wrinkle-slurping eye creams, a girl strives to repair the self-esteem ravaged by men and other bad decisions.

To many, it helps stop time and remain in that wonderful groundhog day, staying carefree and forever a youngster (take note of the pacific blue eye shadow and mauve blush). The benefits reaped from opening Pandora’s box of cosmetics are massive for the normally jaded and harassed Jane. They transport her to a land far away from cheapskate employers, horny losers and fake friends, where she can romp around in the land of milk-and-honey-enriched skin lotion.

A pathetic example of a cosmetic whore is yours truly. I cannot sit through Mass for an hour and hopefully absolve myself from sins I have collected over my 22-year career of living well. However, I don’t mind putting off work, or keeping a hot date in the back-burner, just so I can roast myself in a tanning bed or have myself barbarically waxed in places where the sun doesn’t shine. It may be wasted time for some, but for the darker and hairless me, life just got better.

Maybe that’s why the advertising world is such a multi-million dollar business. It sells hopes. The possibility of becoming what a girl can only dream of. It sells another chance, a new beginning. To the thwarted and aging woman who lost her husband to the secretary, a wrinkle cream is not just a wrinkle cream. It is revenge Ivana Trump-style. If she’s really angry she may just have her gut hoovered and her face pinched (but that’s another story). To a teenager, lipgloss is just not lipgloss. It’s a rite of passage, a confident step into womanhood. To a shy and repressed virgin, red lipstick is just not red lipstick, it’s sex on her lips.

If a girl believes she is beautiful, she becomes confident. She can do anything because the impossible looks effortless. However, the heady power one gets from a stroke of rouge or a dab of perfume is as shallow as the act itself. The glossy pictures that promise youth, men, supremacy, potency and wealth are nothing but air-brushed and candy-coated augurs of the unattainable.

No matter how much sparkle a girl puts on her décolletage, or how often she smothers her skin with "miracle" creams, being beautiful does not come from a tube. It is simply being pure and simple. The latest "it" girl, who’s paid an arm and a leg to sell a fantasy, knows that deep inside, that astringent will only get rid of the oil but not the emotional ennui.

The best beauty regimen is to sweeten and moisturize one’s life with glossy memories. As in every painting, the canvas is simply the vehicle wherein one’s passion for la vie is communicated. The magic lies in the artist and her vigor for life and sensitivity for all things valuable. The face and body become the canvas where the artist/conductor/poet can draw/composer/write her inner happiness. No lipgloss or blush can hide or deflect sadness. The late Kevyn Aucion once said, "Life is too short to spend it hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade can mask an ugly heart."