Earlier this year, I underwent an arm lift and hand rejuvenation. Now, I have turned my attention to my ears. Once, people said a woman’s age could be read in her hands. Then the focus shifted to the neck, and later to the arms. Earlobes are another giveaway — except these days, they do not have to be.

We tend to pour our energy into our faces and bodies, while ears are barely considered. That is, until we suddenly spot them. It might be the sight of a pair of earrings hanging uneasily from stretched, thinning lobes that look flatter, longer and more creased than they once did. Then comes the inevitable mirror check, and the uncomfortable realisation that our own lobes may be going the same way.

If your earlobes no longer look as smooth, plump or youthful as they used to — and your favourite earrings seem to highlight the problem rather than hide it — there is now a solution. Welcome to the Ear Job.

Earlobes 101 

Earlobe ageing may not be something you have spent much time worrying about. I have, but after almost four decades working as an aesthetic consultant, noticing these small but telling changes is part of the job.

The science is straightforward. Unlike most areas of the face, earlobes do not have muscle or bone underneath them. They are made up of skin, connective tissue and a modest pad of fat — and little else. That delicate structure is exactly what makes them so susceptible to time’s effects. The internal changes begin well before they are obvious on the surface.

Heavy earrings are often the first contributing factor. Worn regularly over many years, their weight gradually pulls the lobe downward, stretching it in a way nature never intended.

But downward-stretched ears are only the beginning. The real giveaway comes later. With time, the earlobe loses fat, along with the collagen and elastin that once gave it firmness – and the underlying support is gone. The poor lobe becomes a shadow of its former self. Even a smaller stud earring cannot sit correctly in place on an earlobe without support. Instead, it tilts forward, sits at an unintended angle, or slides toward the front of a lobe that has lost the structure required to hold it upright.

I monitor everything to do with anti-ageing, both in the industry and on my own face and body, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to keeping all my body parts looking roughly the same age. When I realised my earlobes were looking older than the rest of me, I wasted no time getting them done; they had thinned, flattened, lost volume and developed wrinkles. As you’d expect, my earrings, instead of sitting the way they used to, had begun to droop forward at an angle due to a lack of support.

My ears were starting to look old, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

How to fix it

The procedure is called earlobe rejuvenation – though I prefer Ear Job – and essentially involves hyaluronic acid filler being injected directly into the lobe.

This is the same compound used routinely in facial rejuvenation: hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the body, which is precisely why it carries a low risk of reaction and why it has remained a trusted option in injectable treatments for years.

The filler performs two functions in a single sitting. First, it restores volume to the lobe, rebuilding the structure and cushioning required by earrings to sit correctly in their holes. The same applies to clip-ons, by the way, which arguably need even more cushioning for a firm enough grip. No one wants a clip-on dropping into their soup.

Second, filler smooths the wrinkling and creasing that forms on the lobe’s surface as it thins, giving a more youthful appearance.

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The injection itself takes only minutes. Most practitioners apply a topical numbing cream beforehand, and the filler often contains lidocaine for additional comfort. I found it less painful than getting my ears pierced.

Ear enhancement requires no downtime. There may be temporary mild swelling, but there was none in my case. And it lasts.

Most fillers have a lifespan tied to how much the treated area moves. Lips and cheeks, for instance, are almost continuously in motion, and that constant activity brings richer blood flow to the area, which appears to speed up the natural enzymatic process by which the body breaks hyaluronic acid down.

Earlobes have a distinct advantage in this respect: they barely move at all. That lack of movement allows the filler to hold its shape considerably longer than it would elsewhere. It’s often well over a year before any touch-up is necessary, so fewer visits to the clinic. What’s not to love?

Are you a candidate?

If you’re over 30 and have worn heavy earrings regularly for a significant part of your adult life, there’s a reasonable chance the lobe-drooping process has already begun. If you’re over 50, even if you don’t wear earrings, age alone can cause volume loss and creases. Candidates for Ear Jobs are those who are noticing, for whatever reason, thinning, drooping, wrinkly earlobes – with or without stretched piercings, and with or without earrings that no longer sit as they once did. (I’m aware this sounds like the ultimate first-world problem.)

It’s also worth noting that Ear Jobs pair naturally with other procedures. Filler in the earlobes, alongside facial rejuvenation, tends to produce one coherent, harmonious result. No one wants a beautifully rejuvenated face with saggy old ears on either side of it, and vice versa. Consistency is key.

How much does it cost?

Depending on provider, location and the amount of filler required, it can vary quite widely – from £250 upwards.

This is a simple procedure, though simple should not be read as foolproof. As with any injectable treatment, the practitioner is as important as the product. Specific experience in treating earlobes is required, along with an understanding of the tissue involved, and a policy of natural results over volume.

For decades, I’ve been saying that anti-ageing procedures, when performed correctly, mean looking naturally younger, not ‘done’. They should also consider the overall picture. Earlobes are a prime example of how a small, easily overlooked detail can undermine everything else one has invested in. You can be otherwise beautifully presented, with well-maintained skin, a youthful face (naturally or otherwise), and an elegant wardrobe – only for a pair of droopy earlobes to let the side down.

By now I’m guessing everyone reading this has inspected their own earlobes. Take a look at my before-and-after images. Before: thin and wrinkly, the earring listing forward under its own weight. After: full, properly supported, sitting as nature intended – 30 years ago.

That comparison is the entire case for the procedure. No exaggeration required – simply tissue that has been given back the volume it had lost.

For information about Cindy Jackson and her consultancy, visit cindyjackson.com

On a deceptively quiet Sunday in Sugar Land, the affluent Houston suburb hums along with its usual manicured calm: matching homes, trimmed lawns and neighbors who appear blissfully unaware of what is unfolding behind one of those polished façades. No frantic Nextdoor alert will warn residents that a covert operative is being tortured inside a bland McMansion. No curtain-twitching homeowner will spot Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña), shrouded and handcuffed to a chair in a bare upstairs room, surrounded by armed Russians. America’s sprawl has its advantages, and anonymity is one of them. Six days after she was knocked out on Raven and secretly moved from Baltimore to Texas, Joe is forced to confront a grim truth: rescue may not come in time. In Episode 6 of Lioness Season 3 on Paramount+, her predicament reaches its most desperate point yet.

Before the season’s present-past structure crashes into its final stretch — with only three episodes remaining — the story rewinds six months, where the outlook is far more favorable. The team’s sweep of Russian assets is paying off in a big way. Compromised Americans and their handlers are in custody, while much of the Russian embassy in Washington is being expelled. The resulting “espionage scandal” has erupted into national headlines. At Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse in D.C., Secretary of State Mullins (Morgan Freeman) is almost gleeful as he corners Senator Olson (Joe Nemmers), whose role in the operation has been exposed. Mullins offers him a choice: resign immediately or face a public treason prosecution. After Mullins exits, Joe presents an even darker third option. “You could kill yourself.” To her, Olson is not merely a corrupt politician; he belongs in the same moral category as the people who came after her family.

Olson takes the CIA case officer’s chilling suggestion to heart. Within minutes, panic overtakes him. Sweating, unraveling and unable to face what is coming, the senator steers his Mercedes directly into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Tucker (LaMonica Garrett) and Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), watching from the follow vehicle, can only register the aftermath. “The coward’s way out,” Tucker tells Joe, who shows no sign of pity.

The fallout from the operation lifts the mood at the safe house. For the first time in a while, Joe seems lighter, laughing and sparring playfully with Neal (Dave Annable). “That’s not the soldier in me, that’s the Dominican in me,” she jokes, giving Kate and Charlie a rare glimpse of their parents at ease. Joe even reassures the girls that the family will be able to go home because the people who wanted her dead will not be returning. But comfort quickly turns into instruction. “They don’t deserve your fear, and they forfeited their right to your compassion,” she tells them. Much like her earlier “kill for this life” speech, Joe continues to school her daughters in the brutal code of the Lioness universe — and, by extension, the Sheridan-O-Verse — where problems are settled violently, and the hardened people who do the settling are framed as righteous for bearing the burden.

“Jackpot on plane, four bandits down.” Back in the present, six days after Joe’s abduction, Oleksandra’s (Elizaveta Neretin) intelligence has helped Kyle (Thad Luckinbill) and the Delta Force crew track the jet to Texas. The listed flight plan points to the Caribbean, but the aircraft is carrying 40,000 pounds of fuel — enough avgas to reach Russia, or possibly the Middle East. The pilot refuses to answer Kyle’s questions. Outside the plane, when the crew surrounds Grady and pulls weapons, they are swiftly eliminated. The discovery tells the team they are closing in on Joe, prompting them to fan out across the Houston area and check known Russian SVR safe houses. In Sugar Land, Renat (Dimitry Rozental) and his armed men watch from darkened windows as Randy (Austin Hébert) and Tex (Jonah Wharton) conduct a slow observational drive-by. Sensing the net tightening, Joe’s captor makes an urgent call. “You need a new out. They’re circling. Now come get your problem before we throw her in the street.”

Who did Renat call? He and his men are Russian speakers, and given the action in the Lioness past, Russia always seemed the likely culprit for Joe’s predicament. Tied to her chair, still in the shroud, she hears a new voice in the room. “I am here to take you to your death,” a bearded man named Babat (Kamyar Jahan) tells her, and gives commands to his men in Farsi. Joe, for her part, remains unbroken, and insults this guy once the shroud comes off. But she can only scream when he unfolds a blade and hacks off a toe without hesitation. In just a few moments, Babat has elevated the awful stakes of her capture, and as Renat – the guy we were led to believe was in charge – steals off into the Texas night, Joe’s new crew of captors haul her into a truck for transport. Their promises of even more torture, of being stoned by children, and of a terrible death by fire illustrate how close yet far away the team really is. 

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QRF for Lioness Season 3 Episode 6 (“Sugar Land”): 

• This episode features another great scene with Elizaveta Neretin as Oleksandra Balakin. We haven’t heard anything definite about a Lioness Season 4, but in our version, Oleksa joins Joe and the team full-time.

• FBO FBO FBO FBO – what the hell is an FBO? Taylor Sheridan loves to have his characters spout undefined acronyms, and this one stands for “fixed-base operator,” essentially a privately owned and operated airstrip. People saying FBO are all over this ep of Lioness, just like they were in Landman.

• “Brother, I am getting fucking flanked out here.” As Grady, when Ian Bohen says this during the gunfight at the jet, we flashed back to when Bohen said essentially the same line as Evan in Wind River. Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, the 2017 film is like a Sheridan-O-Verse incubator – Bohen’s in there, as is James “Two Cups” Jordan, as is Kelsey Asbille, as are Jeremy Renner and Hugh Dillon from Mayor of Kingstown.

An East Texas sheriff’s deputy had a heart-stopping roadside surprise when a deer he believed was dead suddenly jumped up, prompting the startled officer to yell and bolt back toward his patrol vehicle in a dashcam moment that rapidly spread across social media.

The unexpected encounter was recorded by the deputy’s dash camera and later posted to Facebook by Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace, who quipped that some moments really can “scare the heck out of a person.”

Wallace leaned into the humor of the viral video, urging viewers to “[w]atch when he encounters what he thinks is a dead deer until it comes back to life!”

The clip begins with the deputy cautiously walking toward a doe lying still near the edge of the road, apparently lifeless.

As the deputy gets closer to examine the animal, the deer suddenly springs to life.

The startled deputy lets out a scream and races back toward his patrol vehicle.

“OK, we’re good,” the deputy says with a laugh after recovering from the surprise.

The deer is last seen sitting up on the side of the road before the video ends.

“Instead of a citation, the ‘suspect’ made a four-legged getaway and vanished into the East Texas woods,” Wallace wrote on Facebook.

“Just another night shift where anything can happen,” the sheriff added.

Wallace later assured viewers that the doe was unharmed and “made a full recovery.”

The unexpected roadside encounter quickly found an audience online, with Wallace saying the video has been viewed more than 10 million times.

When Wieke De Boer reached the Grand Canyon early Friday for what was meant to be a solo hiking adventure, nothing about the morning hinted at the frightening ordeal that was about to unfold.

A seasoned hiker who had visited the landmark repeatedly, De Boer noticed one unfamiliar detail before starting her descent: a bulletin board flyer outlining flash-flood evacuation routes through the canyon.

De Boer, 47, from Tucson, Arizona, typically hikes the Grand Canyon in winter and said she had never come across that kind of warning before. This time, she paused long enough to read it carefully before moving on.

Within two days, that brief stop would prove crucial. Her memory of where those evacuation paths led would become a key factor in her survival.

‘I normally go in the winter, and so I’d never seen that before,’ the Arizona mother told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.

‘So, I actually looked at it and paid attention to it and so I knew where I was supposed to go when it happened.’

By Saturday afternoon, De Boer was among dozens of hikers desperately fleeing to higher ground as a catastrophic wall of water, mud and debris tore through the bottom of the Grand Canyon, sweeping away almost everything in its path. 

The floods, the worst in 60 years, were made worse by the Dragon Bravo Fire, which ripped through the area last year and left large sections of the Canyon vulnerable to mudslides. 

The heavy floods claimed the lives of two men, chiropractor John Giusti and his friend, martial artist Brent Rosenkranz, 42. 

A third man, Timothy Smith, 53, who was also traveling with the group, is the only person still unaccounted for as of Wednesday.

De Boer, meanwhile, escaped with her life after being given just five minutes to grab her belongings and run. 

At first, however, she had little reason to think she would need it.  

The University of Arizona math instructor had checked the weather forecast before leaving home and knew rain was in the offing but says she welcomed the idea, hoping it would lead to cooler temperatures at the bottom of the Canyon where summer highs can soar to 120F.

The first day passed off uneventfully with just a few splatters of rain – but that would all change on the Saturday.

That morning, De Boer set off on a run to the North Rim at 5am and was less than three miles from completing the strenuous North Kaibab Trail when a storm hit.

‘I was hit with another little monsoon storm,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I say little, but that’s just because it didn’t last that long. 

‘It was maybe 15, 20 minutes, but it was quite severe and there was a lot of lightning and there was hail.

‘That’s when I decided to turn around because I looked at the trail and there was water running over it and a thousand feet below me, I could hear Bright Angel Creek and it just was getting louder and louder.

‘There was water coming over the cliff down on me. And then as I turned around and started heading back down, there was a waterfall that wasn’t there [before].’

The decision to turn back saved her life, although De Boer says at that point, she still hadn’t realized the level of danger she was really in.

Video taken by De Boer at the time shows the creek still within its banks, albeit swollen and brown, but that wouldn’t last for long.

Back in camp, she continued to check on the water level of Bright Angel Creek, noting it had only risen a foot, and tried to take shelter in her tent.

‘I live in Arizona and so I know about flash floods and my tent was next to the creek,’ De Boer said.

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‘So, I definitely kept looking out and making sure that the creek was still where it was before and wasn’t rising too quickly.’ 

‘It seemed OK,’ De Boer added. ‘It [the creek] was still a good bit below me.’ 

But despite her precautions, her tent soon flooded and when she looked out again it was to discover the whole of the Bright Angel Campground underwater.

It was then that two rangers arrived and told her to evacuate immediately to higher ground, giving her just five minutes to throw her belongings into a bag and run.

‘When the rain let up a little bit, I got out of my tent to see what I could do to make the situation inside my tent better, to see if I could maybe move it to a drier spot.

‘And then I looked around and I noticed there were no more dry spots. It wasn’t just that my tent was sitting in a puddle. The whole site was flooded basically.

‘That’s when two rangers came by and told me that it was time to start evacuating.’

Cellphone signal in the Grand Canyon is patchy at best and nonexistent on the Canyon floor, and while De Boer had satellite service enabled on her phone that let her text her daughters to ask for the rain forecast, the warning from the rangers was the only hint a disaster was about to strike.

De Boer says she briefly took shelter at a ranger station with two other people but was told to move to higher ground yet again with the group then holing up in a mule corral.

‘That’s the point when the wall of water came through because as we were already under the mule corral, there were other people that came running from down lower in a little bit of a panic,’ she said.

The flash flood, seen in another video of De Boer’s, was so strong it destroyed pedestrian bridges and badly damaged 40 percent of the Transcanyon Waterline – a facility that provides water to campgrounds and hotels within the Grand Canyon National Park.

By now, De Boer’s group had been told to move again – this time across Silver Bridge to a new point higher up the canyon.

‘We were pointing out things that were floating down the river,’ said De Boer. 

‘We were like, oh, there’s a Yeti cooler from the construction workers and oh, there’s another Yeti cooler. 

‘Then eventually it was like, oh, there goes the whole bunkhouse and you could see their beds floating down and oh, there’s our fridge floating down the river.’

Eventually, after what De Boer thinks was between two to three hours, the floods eased off enough for helicopter rescue flights to begin, with the choppers evacuating the exhausted survivors to the South Rim where they were met by care crews from the American Red Cross.

‘I’m super grateful to not just the rangers that for sure saved lives, but also from the moment that we got evacuated out and arrived up on the South Rim, we were taken such good care of,’ De Boer said.

‘The Red Cross was there. There were people from the local high school there. 

‘It was amazing. I couldn’t have imagined it being any better than that.’

Still, despite being home safely and reunited with her teenage daughters aged 14 and 16, De Boer knows she had a lucky escape.

‘I think about that had I not turned around at the North Rim when I did, I would’ve been in the box when the flood hit.

‘Had I left not at 5am but 6.30am, things would’ve been very different. Or if the ranger hadn’t come by when she did, I think I would’ve just been hunkered down in my tent trying to keep it from blowing away when the water hit.’

Hurricane Marie is sending powerful surf and hazardous rip currents toward the Southern California coast, prompting flooding, water rescues and urgent efforts to protect beachfront homes from encroaching ocean water.

The storm is spinning in the eastern Pacific off Baja California and is not forecast to come ashore in California. Even without a direct landfall, its effects are already being felt at beaches from Los Angeles County to Orange County.

In Seal Beach on Saturday, waves pushed seawater into parking areas near the pier, inundating low-lying spots and leaving some vehicles stuck in floodwater.

Video obtained by ABC7 showed about a dozen people working together to shove one swamped vehicle out of the rising water.

By nightfall, damp sand had been carried across the boardwalk, and flooding remained visible around homes lining the shore.

“This is crazy. I’ve lived here for 20+ years, and usually we get like 1- to 2-foot waves. But when we get the storm to come in here, it’s like, crazy. We’re just not used to that,” Seal Beach resident Clifford Scarborough said.

Crews responded by constructing a berm and pumping seawater back toward the ocean. The 8th Street and 10th Street parking lots that were inundated are expected to remain closed through Wednesday.

The dangerous conditions weren’t limited to Seal Beach.

In Manhattan Beach, a lifeguard rescue was caught on video as towering swells and powerful currents created hazardous conditions despite Marie remaining hundreds of miles away.

“It’s extremely concerning — having children, you’re always on high alert,” Melissa Sann of Mid-Wilshire said.

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Los Angeles County lifeguards are preparing for a particularly busy holiday weekend, with officials anticipating more than 1,000 water rescues. On a typical day, that number can be around 500.

“We’re expecting to see these elevated wave heights in the 3- to 5-foot range, with sets up to 6- to 8-feet up in some of our standout beaches up in Zuma Beach and Malibu,” Los Angeles County Fire Department ocean lifeguard specialist Jake Miller told ABC7.

Lifeguards are warning beachgoers to check conditions before entering the water and to recognize their own limits as the storm-generated swells continue to arrive.

The National Weather Service has warned that Marie’s effects could include coastal flooding, dangerous rip currents, beach erosion and large waves across Southern California.

“There is an increased risk for ocean drowning,” the NWS warned, saying rip currents could become “widespread and very strong” and potentially pull swimmers and surfers away from shore.

The agency also warned that large breaking waves could injure people, sweep beachgoers from rocks and beaches and overturn small boats near shore.

Low-lying coastal areas could see seawater flooding around high tide, particularly vulnerable stretches including Avalon, Long Beach’s Alamitos Peninsula and the coastline from Oxnard to Malibu, including Point Mugu, according to the NWS.

The weather service has issued coastal flood, high surf and small craft advisories, along with a beach hazards statement, for parts of Southern California through Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center said Marie is expected to weaken steadily and become a post-tropical remnant low by Wednesday.

But the storm’s swells are expected to continue affecting Southern California for several days, potentially creating life-threatening surf and rip-current conditions.

Back in Seal Beach, Scarborough said the weekend’s flooding was a stark reminder of the ocean’s power. “It just shows you how powerful it is. We have to respect nature,” he said.