How celebrities prepare for the Oscars. By Zoe Foster

Does your routine before a big night out involve botox injections under the armpits and detox soup for every meal? It might if you’re a celebrity heading to the Oscars today. Author and columnist Zoe Foster writes about how the A-listers prepare for their red carpet appearances:

As most people with a pulse know, today is the Academy Awards, a day when female A-listers sleep in til noon, enjoy some bacon and eggs, then chuck on whatever dress is clean and nearby before getting a taxi to the Kodak theatre. Ha ha ha! As if. They obviously never eat bacon. But seriously, the preparation that goes into these affairs is gobsmacking. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I’m going to anyway.

1.     The face must be in “perfect” shape.
Weeks out, peels, injections, laser resurfacing and microdermabrasion are undertaken in order to get the kind of ageless, poreless, perfect skin that can tolerate extremely high-definition cameras and extreme close-ups on the red rug.  Add weekly facials, oxygen and LED light treatments to hydrate and plump up that skin and some luxurious skincare, and you’re FINALLY ready for two-hours worth of thick makeup.

2.     The body must not sweat.
It’s very popular (for both men and women) to have Botox injections under the armpits, or on the soles of the feet or even the palms to stop the sweats. (Some even have fat injections in the soles of their feet to alleviate the pain of high-heels.) Which, let’s face it, if you’re on international TV accepting a pretty important award and you can’t stop yourself from other involuntary leakages (“tears”), sweating is pretty likely.

3.     The hair must be at the perfect stage of colour and cut.
Some dare to be brave and flash a new cut or colour on the night, (cue Sandra Bullock’s heavy fringe at the Globes) but most are far less adventurous, opting instead to arrive with safe, glamorous hair that is neither sticky-outy from being freshly cut, nor white-grey or too dark from being freshly-coloured. And only took three hours to create.

4. The body must be very, very slim.
Oh come on. You’ve seen those red carpet collarbones; you could hang coat hangers off them! These women are not eating anything remotely bloating for the week leading up to the Big Event. No, it’s green tea and sashimi and detox soup, thank you very much. Because that dress has to look PERFECT: It will be seen by literally billions of people, both tonight, and if it’s good/awful enough, for many years to come. Failure (“a belly that looks as though it has been fed recently”) is not an option. We now know why the stars change for the after party – it’s not because they don’t want to ruin their $12, 000 borrowed Oscar de la Renta, it’s so they have assault that cheese platter and not show the evidence in OK Magazine’s after-party photos.

5. The dress must be unique, but not weird.
This rule doesn’t apply for everyone (hi, Miss Bonham-Carter), but for most, arriving in a spectacular dress that isn’t the same as Everyone Else’s, but doesn’t stand out too much, is crucial. It has to be interesting enough for fashion critics to fall over themselves to label it ‘fresh’ and ‘exciting’, but safe enough for the General Public and the majority of the magazine population to slide it into the Best Dressed pages.

6. The facial expression and pose must be flattering and captivating at ALL times.
When they’re on the red carpet, they most pose in a way that flatters the fall of the dress and their body shape. They must smile in an alluring – but not seductive – fashion to hundreds of photographers all yelling their names from different directions. And they must look pleasant and elegantly insouciant when the camera pans to them during the awards. No, they’re not saving lives, but it’s not an enviable role. I’d rather eat my bin sludge than sustain that breed of examination.

7. The clutch must be the size of a two-dollar coin.
And fit roughly as much.

8. Atomic amounts of pressure and scrutiny must be endured.
If you have somehow missed the multiple references to these women being in the eye of world press storm thus far, please allow me again reiterate how much pressure comes with being invited to the Oscars, and (gasp!) actually being nominated for something: It is positively astral. There would be nothing like it. And I don’t envy them for one stinkin’ nanosecond.

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What’s your routine to prepare for a big night out on the town? Is it anything like the eight-step routine Zoe’s described?