There comes a time in a woman's life when she realises that actually, on reflection, the job of being a flight attendant isn't what she thought it was. That time usually comes shortly after said girl's first long-haul flight, or perhaps a cheap and cheerful short hop, and the realisation that orange, say, isn't necessarily a flattering colour.

For me, it was never an issue. There just didn't seem to be black flight attendants, so I consigned it to the list of "jobs that aren't for me" - along with astronaut and captain of the England football team. I last flew long haul to New York and, although black flight attendants are more common than they were (and not just on certain routes), I was practically beside myself when I discovered there were two on my plane. But the thing that really knocked me for six was the condition of their skin. Flying plays havoc with pretty much any skin type, but given black skin's fondness for going dry and flaky at the tiniest hint of dehydration, how did these two manage to look fresh as daisies?

After informing my rather confused friends that I "have to go and speak to the flight attendants", I trotted off towards the back of the plane. Within minutes, they were showing me their products and we were swapping tips. Prescriptives' Super Flight Cream and Afterlife, from Lush, were their favourites for combating dry skin, as well as liberally spritzing their faces with Evian spray during the flight and drinking plenty of water.

"Recycled in-flight air is drier than any of the world's deserts," says Christine Hay, of Prescriptives. "Although your skin gets an adequate supply of oxygen, the barometric pressure is lower than you are used to - it's the equivalent of standing on an 8,000ft mountain. Little oxygen reaches the bloodstream and this results in major dehydration."

Other good "flight" creams - in my humble, non-flight-attendant opinion - are Moisture Surge by Clinique, Jo Malone's Vitamin E gel and Hope In A Jar, by Philosophy.