I need to know a lot of things in this life. What is for dinner? What is the deal with tides really? What is the point of anything? To complicate matters further, Rachel Hunter is here to pose another equally stress-inducing question – “how do we be healthy and stay looking young?” Ah shit, I momentarily forgot I need to worry about that too. Please tell me Rachel, guide me through yonder beauty secrets with yonder magical Trumpet ice-cream of youthful knowledge.

The first stop on the beauty tour is Paris, which Rachel first visited at the age of ten, when she was was floored by all of the chic folk. I went to Paris when I was ten, slipped down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower and spent the rest of the time sulking in a grotty pizza place because it was the only place they spoke English. Similar.

“They have a certain style here, it’s effortless and chic,” she says, staring at man dressed in double denim with a very small bun atop his head.

So, how do we get this effortless style? A lady called Matil (no ‘da’ because chic) tells us that the secret is BB cream, red lips and nails, and dry shampoo. Let me tell you something Matil, I’ve already got dry shampoo and I’m too lazy to even use THAT. “Less is more,” she says, “make everything a bit messy”. Okay, I am a Parisienne goddess every day when I roll out of bed onto a pile of clothes and wear whatever sticks to me. Job done. Tour over.

Rach visits a futuristic hair salon where the French Men in Black knot your hair into something resembling a bread twist. Rachel takes a deep sniff of the French Tommy Lee Jones for some reason, and he doesn’t flinch. Maybe this is normal, chic even. “Everything smells so good in France,” Rachel gushes.

Next stop is a spa for men! Crazy! Man spa! There’s an old man having a pedicure, easily the highlight of the episode, and another business bro getting an anti-aging facial. “I LOVE it” Rachel beams, gleeful that men are starting to loathe the natural ageing process just as much as women are.

We go and eat a whole lot of fries, steak and cheeses with a lady who tells us it is healthy, and then go and visit a 70-year-old supermodel who tells us that you should only eat vegetables and that people who eat french fries “get fat”. I drop my direct line to McDonalds, and pick up a celery stick.

This elderly supermodel is pretty great talent, talking about the day she “got angry” about how she had been put out to pasture, whacked on some mascara and walked into her agents office demanding a job. “She was so brave,” Rachel muses, as if talking about someone who had lost their arms and legs and eyes in a war.

Off for some “vino therapy”, or as I like to call it A MONDAY NIGHT LMFAO. Apparently grapes do magic on the old skin, so Rach gets heavily involved in a ‘Cabernet Massage’. Or as I like to call it A TUESDAY NIGHT LMFAO.

Our last stop of this leg of the tour is to a rare perfumery. According to Coco Chanel “a woman who wears no perfume has no future”. Look, Coco. I know you lot are all actively trying to make me feel like shit, but joke’s on you because I have a perfume and therefore, thank God, a future. There are a whole pile of mystery potions that Rachel samples, including skunk secretion. I feel like someone who plasters skunk secretion on their wrists is the one who probably has no future, but what do I know?

Rachel goes absolutely nuts for the different scents, manically shoving various tabs up her nose like a coke fiend at the very end of their stash. “Lemongrass… petrol… licorice… blue cheese,” she chants in a semi-possessed state. She finally gets the right perfume combo, bottles it up, and ensures herself at least ten more years of future. Phew. Things were looking dicey for a while there.

So ends the first leg of the tour. I have decided to watch every week and take stock of all the things I need to achieve the ultimate, global ideal of beauty and youth. Feel free to copy and paste it into your own shopping list as it grows exponentially:

• red lipstick
• red nail polish
• BB cream
• dry shampoo
• Trench coat
• Scarf
• Face wine
• Body wine
• Drinking wine
• Large steak, fries, cheeses and pastries
• None of these and just vegetables ^
• Skunk perfume

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Click here to watch Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty on TVNZ Ondemand

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