NeoGen for eyelids, from £350

This is usually where women start with me. The lid has started to sit on the lashes. Concealer creases under the eye. Photographs look cross when you are not. And you do not want a knife. NeoGen for the eyes starts at £350, here at Emmanuel Hall in The Lee, a short drive from Great Missenden, Amersham and Chesham.

It is nitrogen plasma passed across the upper and lower eyelids. Not a cut, and not one of those plasma pens that dot the skin and can leave little marks. A pen and NeoGen get muddled online. They are not the same appointment, and they are not the same recovery. I will say which I am suggesting, in plain words, before we pick a date.

What I can help, and what I cannot

• A lid that has started to feel heavy, when the issue is skin rather than a big fat pad
• Crepey skin under the eye
• Crow's feet that are now texture, not just a smile line
• Looking tired when concealer is no longer covering it

It will not remove a fat pad, and it will not open a deeply hooded eye the way surgery can. If I look at you and the problem is structure, I will say so. I would rather you drive home with a no than with a treatment that cannot do the job. Eyes on their own are a full treatment. They are not a cheap way to try the machine. The face starts at £750 because it is more skin and more time.

The days after, around the eyes

Eyes swell. On day three you can look a bit battered in photographs, and that is the moment people nearly ring me in a panic. I will have told you. By the second week most people just look more rested, which is the whole point. Do not book it the week you need to be seen. Eyeliner and mascara wait until I say the skin is ready. You will not be putting them on the next morning.

Collagen does not finish the job in a fortnight. The mirror you care about is the one a month or two later, and it can keep improving after that. If you only have one area you mind, and it is the eyes, this is the one I would start with.