For anyone who has ever followed fashion and beauty trends, it’s safe to assume that we most of us have made a few mistakes in our lifetimes and wasted our hard earned money on some real clangers.

Oh, I’ve lived through some major stupidity, given my career in fashion magazines. Colourless mascara springs to mind. A particularly ugly orange leather pencil skirt. Horrendously expensive and I would suggest infantile pink satin high heeled YSL sandals with long ribbons that tied around the ankle that came loose every five minutes and made me look like an idiot.

So in the interests of the sisterhood, and your future retirement plans, I thought I would isolate five things that nobody needs.

Eye cream

Rort number one: Eye cream. Photo: Getty

We’ve all heard a chirpy salesperson say: “You have some fine lines around your eyes, and the area is quite dehydrated. But you need a different cream to your usual moisturiser because the skin around the eyes is finer. Let me show you this very expensive one…. you only need to use a little bit.” Blah blah blah.

We have the lines because of facial muscles people. Just extend a very light amount your normal moisturiser on the eye area. Voila.

High heeled thongs

These are apparently a new trend, thongs with a high-ish kitten heel.

The Kardashians started it, which is a phrase one could level against more than one fashion crime.

Kendall Jenner wore a pair the other day, which American Vogue waxed lyrical about. I can’t even imagine (actually yes I can) how terribly terribly wrong this could go if you have less than perfect feet, the heel pushing the foot forward and splaying the toes, Tyrannosaurus Rex style.

Hair mousse

How many cans of this sticky useless gunk have polluted the planet since someone decided tackiness equalled volume?

Hair mousse – did it really work for anyone? Photo: Getty

It makes shiny hair matte, and silky hair feel like a bathmat. I would suggest about 70 per cent of the hair products on the market don’t need to exist.

Handbags – kind of

Now, this may be slightly divisive, but I am questioning the usefulness of the traditional handbag.

Given that many of us are carrying laptops, folders, lunch etc. – a tote bag, with a purse inside it, makes much more sense.

I keep a smallish leather clutch purse with my keys, credit card, compact, lipstick, reading glasses and phone inside the tote, and I can then simply pull it out and move on to lunch, dinner, or an event and leave the tote bag in the office or the hotel room.

It seems very un-modern to be lugging around a heavy bag that needs its own serviette to sit on. I’m also a huge fan of the small, cross-body bag that carries just the essentials and leaves your hands free, which can also be put in the tote

The cumbersome and oversized tote bag – home to smaller, more useful bags. Photo: Getty

Things that dangle

Tizzy handbag charms and phone charms make me cross.

I don’t care if they are from a luxury house, the world does not need more landfill, or animals killed to add a furry ornament to an already over-designed handbag that you may not even need. Refer to point four.