THE neck. When you think about it - if you think about it - it's a pretty boring part of the body. One you don't really pay attention to unless a) it's incredibly long and slender and in fact your best feature or b) and more likely, you're putting a flashy chunk of jewellery around it.

The rest of the time it's just, well, your neck. When anti-ageing is mentioned, it's all about under the eyes (always the first area to cave in), the rest of the face, even hands.

Most of the time we'll slap a bit of moisturiser on the neck, but is there any real reason to lavish it with the love and attention that the rest of us deserves? Surely those dimpled thighs and worryingly saggy bum cheeks are worth more effort than the stretch of skin between the head and chest. . .

But before you get too complacent, let me mention two words. Just two little words that should strike terror into your heart and come between you and your beauty sleep: Deirdre Barlow.

There's a reason this woman wears polonecks most of the year but she can't get away with it in the middle of summer, and good Lord if that doesn't make you want to start looking after your neck, then you might as well stop reading now.

The problem with the neck is that the skin is so thin and delicate that it can begin to sag and wrinkle long before it should.

And while your hands might be a bit of a giveaway, no ageing is more obvious than a doubling chin and a fetching turkey neck.

So, the time to take action is now. No point waiting until you resemble Deirdre before trying to fix it. And of course, where there's a problem area, there's several creams available to fix it. So here are just a few that are on the market now.

Clarins Jeunesse du Cou, A 50 Otherwise known as the advanced extra-firming neck cream. But the clever people at Clarins advise that, as well as slapping this velvety cream on every morning after your regular skincare routine, you should make sure you do some neck exercises once a week as well.

This involves the following and should be repeated 20 times.

Sit tall and straight with the chin held high. Close your lips and smile with the upper lip only (quite a feat).

Place one hand at the base of the throat and pull skin down slightly with a firm grip.

Tilt the head back and you should feel a strong pull on the chin and neck muscles.

Just don't look in the mirror while you're doing it.

Shiseido Benefiance Concentrated Neck Contour Treatment, A 35 This age defence retexturising cream is specially designed to support the unique needs of neck and dAcopyrightcolletage area skin and promises to give you a whole new neck with prolonged use.

Bliss Laboratoire Remede Amino C Hand and Chest Mask, A 135 In one fell swoop you can look after both your hands and your neck with this sunspot-reducing mask that claims to reduce the appearance of hyper-pigmentation on the back of hands, neck and chest in just 10 minutes. A perfect one for all of those serial sunbathers out there.

Vichy NeOvadial Intensive Redensifying Daily AntiAgeing Moisturiser, A 27 This cream has some name on it, but it's a handy one that you can use on both your face and neck and it claims to have an instant tightening effect. The lower price tag obviously doesn't hurt either.