I’m in mourning. Devastatingly, my favourite lipstick has been discontinued.

I’m totally and completely lost without it although I don’t really know why – lipstick only manages to stay on me for about 30 seconds after application. If I so much as wave at someone it seems to fall off.

And yes, I have tried just about every product on the market that promises to keep lipstick firmly in place, but they just make my lips all tacky and I end up looking like a goldfish chewing gum.

I wear less makeup with every year that passes anyway. And after spending two minutes in the morning putting on the slap, I can rarely be bothered with the palaver of reapplying any during the day.

But it all used to be so different. In the 80s I used to spend an hour, yes an entire hour, just putting my mascara on for a night out.

A full face of make-up for work also took at least an hour every day, which would be constantly topped-up, and I used a whole jumbo sized tin of hairspray every week (sorry ozone) for that have-to-have big hair. I must have added two pounds to my weight by lunchtime in cosmetics alone.

And like everyone, I never left the house without a single one of my beauty aids.

No wonder we danced around our handbags in those days – we could barely carry them. We used to go out clubbing equipped with enough gear to do the hair and makeup for every member of Kiss.

Young women today go out with such tiny, elegant bags that there’s barely enough room to squeeze a phone number in them.

But some things never change. A group of my 18-year-old daughter’s friends turned up to get ready together for a night on the town.

And it took around three hours to perfect their hair and makeup before they delicately tiptoed their way to the bus stop on their fabulous stilts – which, incidentally, make the stilettos I used to wear look like Miss Marple’s gardening shoes.

And I’ve given up spontaneously asking either of my teenage daughters if they want to pop to Sainsburys with me. Well, not unless there’s a matinee I want to catch on TV or a room I want to decorate whilst I wait for them to get ready.

So how does this ritual become one that takes minutes from hours I wonder? Do we just get more comfortable with how we look, reach a stage when we know it won’t make much difference or do we just have a whole heap of other things to do?

But, back to the tragic loss of my favourite lippy. Do the people responsible realise the dilemma and heartache that is caused when coldly making a cosmetic cull over a hard boardroom table? The internet is full of women trying to get hold of makeup they’ve relied on for years.

So manufacturers, in future please give us a six month warning if you’re killing off a shade – surely we’re worth it.