Roisin Gorman: ‘Carol Vorderman’s tip for youthful looks is sprout of order’

Toothpaste on a spot? Smear me liberally and let’s get minty.

Apple cider vinegar? It can’t be any worse than a woody cab sauv.

The cold water plunge facial? It’s like an ice cream headache for your face but if it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston, bring on the ice cubes.

There are times, though, when a peek into someone’s beauty regime is more of a window on their soul and former Countdown legend Carol has just opened the blinds.

In an interview for new book Now What? On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain — there’s a girl who’s aiming high — the 63-year-old insists she no longer cares what anyone thinks of her appearance.

The Botox and blow-dries are telling a different story but this woman possesses an ass so pert it should be on a plinth so I’m hanging in for the beauty insights.

And it’s … sprouts.

Thanks to her regime of one meal a day, which isn’t so much intermittent fasting as just fasting, Carol carries supplies of the windiest of veg for snacking, and if there’s one thing that will put you off snacking its Brussels sprouts.

I use the same kind of logic to satisfy chocolate cravings, with a bar of super serious dark chocolate always on hand. It’s so disgusting that one mouthful can cure a hankering for chocolate for months.

In more normal beauty news Carol, who’s gone so professionally gobby about corruption in politics it got her booted off BBC Wales radio, also shares that she usually does the gym three times a week, favours jeans that hold you up, and a good bra.

The latter is important because the menopause made her go up three bra sizes. I nearly spat my dark chocolate out when I read that.

Most menopausal women watch their waistline spread in search of oestrogen, like an oozing Brie. Carol’s got the waistline of a 12-year-old boy and a chest you could rest your pint on, but it’s her body and it would be unsisterly to think ‘Pamela Anderson Baywatch-era boob job’.

While she’s trying to change the world, it’s her beauty regime that grabs the most attention because we’re all in search of the life hack that will convert saggy to smooth, lift, unline, or add vitality when your skin looks like it wants to climb back into bed and pull up the duvet.

But there is a limit.

Kourtney Kardashian and Simon Cowell are both fans of the placenta, in pill or facial form. Animals sometimes eat placentas to hide evidence of a birth from predators. Humans do it if there’s a chance of wrinkle reduction.

Ryan’s Daughter star Sarah Miles became more famous for drinking her own urine for decades than for most of her screen work. I can feel my placenta smoothie coming back up.

Sandra Bullock has previously admitted trying the haemorrhoid cream skin-tightening trick on eye bags. I don’t care if it’s the best beauty invention since Zac Efron’s new chin, that’s one treatment that’s staying in the area God intended.

I also draw the line at taking skincare advice from Jane Fonda. At 86 she looked beyond fabulous at L’Oreal’s Paris Fashion Week show, and I love a bit of L’Oreal, but that visage is the work of two facelifts and an eye bag removal. It’s like taking haircare tips from Samuel L Jackson. Without the benefits of a plastic surgeon on speed dial, a personal trainer, dietician, angel therapist and aura analyst, most of us mere mortals have to rely on the bargain beauty bin, but even there lurks the bizarre.

In a moment of piscine callousness I got fish to eat my calluses during the brief peak of the garra rufa pedicure. Those tiny little creatures might have left me with heels like a baby’s bum but they only do it because they’re starving. Apologies to all the nibblers concerned.

I’ve tried ear candling, the application of a hollow candle in your ear to extract whatever lurks in there. The therapist showed me what had been lurking in there, and no one needs to see that.

A friend gave me a snail-based cream made from mucin, or snail mucus. Even the skinfluencers who came up with replumping, and flog alpha arbutin and jade rollers aren’t shifting many units of snail mucus, but it’s claimed it’s stuffed with hyaluronic acid.

One coat of slightly slimy gel conjured up images of slugs slithering across my cheeks and that stuff crept really slowly to the bin.

Aside from the time for gym sessions, the money for gym membership, and the hard cash for regular Botox and a hot wardrobe, I’d say Carol’s beauty regime is less important than her genes. That ass was written in her DNA.

The really boring truth about any celebrity quick fix is that none of it matters if you don’t lead a half sensible lifestyle and wear sunscreen.

But anything is preferable to raw sprouts.