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How I get ready: Jacqueline Wilson

I make breakfast and go back to bed to write in my pyjamas until about 10am. Then I have a bath and daydream about work. Afterwards, I put factor 50 on every bit of exposed skin, because last year I had a kidney transplant, which makes you susceptible to skin cancer. Foundation doesn’t mix with factor 50, but I do wear dark eye makeup – it goes back to the 60s, when I thought Dusty Springfield looked wonderful. Also, if you wear glasses and don’t wear makeup, your eyes disappear.

Then I add powder and natural-coloured lipstick. I like to look natural. On TV, the makeup people like to give you eyebrows like the Marx brothers and red lipstick – not a good look on me. My hair’s easy to control because it’s short, so I just blow it dry any which way.

I have two sorts of outfits. If it’s going to be a “seeing friends at home and walking the dog” day, I wear jeans and either flat sandals or Doc Martens. If I am going to visit a school, I dress up, because I want the children to see that I am making an effort for them. Whichever day it is, there will be jewellery.

I like to wear pretty shoes; I have been known to wear funky silver ones. When you get to a certain age you have to calm down a bit or you look ridiculous, but you can express yourself with your feet. I like a shop called Poste Mistress in London. The “Poste” is written in tiny lettering and “Mistress” in very big lettering, and when I am on the train, bearing a powder-pink carrier bag with “Mistress” blazoned across it, people raise their eyebrows.

The stage adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather is at the Duke of York’s theatre, London WC2, from 6 August to 6 September; hettyfeatherlive.com

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