Nothing personal, but do those Frownies you wear to bed at night really kick-start your inner joie de vivre? How many summer dresses are enough to satisfy your deeply ingrained “girly girl” instinct? Why is your vanity table called a vanity? I didn’t say mine; I said yours.

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen said, “Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” Which is a virtue, which a defect? Ah, there’s a sticky wicket.

Men, take note: Hamlet did not declare, “Vanity, thy name is woman.” In fact, the male of all species sports the flashier accoutrement, peacocks being so aptly named.

Really, do you think Brad Pitt never gazes at himself in a mirror?

That is, all species except humans, in which the females sweep the beauty awards. Why shouldn’t women celebrate this distinction? Although, really, do you think Brad Pitt never gazes at himself in a mirror?

Beauty radiates from within, so I hear. Then, I’m also told beauty is only skin deep. Here’s a thought: When I exfoliate my skin, am I sloughing off more than dead skin cells, perhaps also eliminating essential moral fiber? Does sloughing off those dead skin cells reveal a heretofore hidden persona? Why won’t my husband let me exfoliate him?

Those cute toys called “Transformers” appeal to everyone’s desire to play God; still, if I can transform a dump truck into a superhero, how come I can’t affix four inches to my height? It can be done, though, with surgery: An increasingly popular operation adds height by splinting metal rods between surgically separated leg bones, adding inches, and perhaps a measure of self confidence, to thousands of “height-challenged” humans. Behold: flamingo legs straight out of GQ and Vanity Fair.

Here’s a thought: When I exfoliate my skin, am I sloughing off more than dead skin cells, perhaps also eliminating essential moral fiber?

Like Transformers, the animated Japanese arts anime, manga and tokusatsu often draw on the act of Henshin, mythology’s concept of shapeshifting. And all along you thought shapeshifting meant tucking your belly fat under a Sansabelt. I ask, what profit derives from retrofitting my physical self?

Shapeshifting in the literal sense made a billionaire of Sara Blakely, who invented Spanx body shapers. Talk about re-shaping the exterior; some Spanx even elevate the posterior. Don’t knock ’em, guys; flab isn’t gender-specific. Spanx’s biggest transformation, though, is to Blakely, who morphed from door-to-door sales rep to owning her own corporation hauling in billions of dollars. Blakely’s lifestyle has definitely transformed, but if her inner self shapeshifted only she knows for sure.

By helping women everywhere look better in their clothes, Blakely earned her standing as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire and is one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential Pople in the World.” Blakely is also the first woman billionaire to sign the Giving Pledge, promising to donate one-half of her profits to charitable causes. Pushed to guess, I’d say this genius shapeshifter always possessed a heart of gold.

We each are capable of manufacturing grace and scattering it around randomly.

Can I change the shape of my character by slipping on a Spanx product? Nope. But I can defy gravity, and sometimes that’s all a narcissistic, vain, dudette needs to lift her, uh, spirits. I can go from dingy gray to platinum glam in approximately 45 minutes, counting blow dry, and feel like a gazillion bucks for six weeks. I can spend my last penny on a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle and lift my olfactory senses out of the doldrums. I can flick through racks of sexy clothes until my carpal tunnel kicks in and fall in love with the perfect dress. Most important, all these vain self serving gifts and ministrations help to deflect my focus from the passage of time that marks the eventual moment when I could give a fig how I look — specifically, after my ashes are shot into space from whence they may have originated. I abide by the maxim, “Live long and still leave a beautiful corpse.”

A smart mother (not mine) once told her daughter, “Never leave home unless you look good enough to meet the President of the United States.” As I often remind my husband, it’s not vanity that drives women (and increasingly, men) to fuss over their appearances; it’s respect for the folks you meet.

The most effective exterior transformation, though, kicks in from the brain. It’s attitude. We each are capable of manufacturing grace and scattering it around randomly. It’s the easiest, perhaps best, transformation of both interior and exterior — all it takes is a smile. Go on; grin till it hurts. They say you’ve got to suffer to be beautiful.