As Baz Luhrman's £86 million epic, Australia, finally reaches cinema screens, all eyes are on the movie's star, the 41-year-old actress Nicole Kidman. Here she is at a Sydney press conference, looking her usual inscrutable self.

Kidman has a cruel kind of beauty, undeniable yet distant. For a girl who was born in sunny Honolulu, she cuts a startlingly glacial figure. She is in great shape - but rather like Madonna, her extreme perfection renders her strangely unsexy. In strong sunlight her fair skin and honey-red hair can take on an almost ethereal quality, inaccurately making her look fragile and vulnerable.

Like her legendary professionalism, her beauty regimen is uncompromising: nothing is left to chance. Her perfection borders on the artificial, and her make-up is too harsh for her elegant, delicate features. There is no softness, there are no fuzzy lines. Her skin has been smoothed and buffed to shiny perfection, to the point where it reflects light like a looking-glass. By contrast, her hair seems frizzy and brittle - and much lighter than her eyebrows, which are too dark for her skin tone.

She is also, of course, too thin. A little bit of flesh is not just natural on a woman of her age (especially one who had a baby in July), it is also desirable. Kidman could easily afford to gain half a stone. I suggest the occasional Mars Bar - great for breast-feeding, too.

New mothers often encounter problems with their hair and skin, so it helps to replenish lost nutrients from within. Perfectil Platinum (£39.49 for 60 tablets) is one of a number of beauty supplements around. This one contains a cocktail of boosting ingredients, including high-grade marine collagen, pine-bark extract, blackcurrant seed oil, lycopene and alpha-lipoic acid. And since Kidman looks slightly anaemic (again, a common post-pregnancy problem) a gentle, easy-to-absorb iron complex should help. HealthAid's excellent Iron Bisglycinate (£4.99 from victoriahealth.co.uk) contains vitamin C to aid absorption and will not irritate the stomach.

Make-up-wise, a softer lip colour is in order, and perhaps something a little more lively on the cheeks. By Terry Tinted Replenishing Lip Care SPF 15, £26 at Space NK (020-8740 2085), is both flattering and nourishing; and Nars Super Orgasm blush, £18.50 (narscosmetics.co.uk) will bring a bit of real passion to the face.

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