Vanity insanity

Vain Britons will check their mirror image more than half a million times during the average lifetime - equating to around once every 35 minutes - from the moment they get up and look in the bathroom mirror, to adjusting their hair in the reflection of a shop window and even while behind the wheel of a car.

According to new research by 'Sheilas Wheels, that offers car insurance for women, the average adult manages to pause in front of a mirror 27 times a day. Women alone manage to get 38 look-ins a day, a total of 721,240 across an average lifetime, which is buoyed up by the fact they are more likely to carry a mirror around with them at all times.

However, men are not quite as vain as women, though they still manage to clock up 18 checks a day, which equates to 341,000 times over their adult lifetime.

While these are the averages, there are a small minority of female preeners (one per cent) who admit they look at themselves more than 50 times a day, never passing on the opportunity to glance at themselves in any reflection they can.

Spread across the day, the average Brit checks themselves out 10 times around the home during a normal day, most naturally after getting out of a shower or while drying their hair.

Then there are at least four checks a day in the workplace - though this falls to just twice a day for men and rises to six a day for women - and five reflections a day from shop windows and other places.

Those under 30 are more likely to use work washrooms as a chance to check their hair or make up than older Britons who are more likely to do so at home or in the car.

Sheilas' Wheels surveyed 1,000 adults about their vain habits and found, regionally, those in East Anglia are most likely to look at themselves in a shop window and those in the south west at work. But the vainest homes in Britain are those in the south east where 24 per cent have 10 or more mirrors.

Across the whole population around one in six people have more than 10 mirrors in their home rising to one in four of those aged under 30. There are over 185 million mirrors across UK homes.

But motorists then add to this with more than half of drivers admitting that they check themselves in their car mirrors in general more than 30 times in a 15 minute journey and 11 per cent do so more than 50 times a day while in their car - even though this is potentially dangerous, even when a vehicle is stationary.

It's the misuse of the rear view mirror in the car that's the greatest cause for concern as not every glance is purely for driving reasons, as a quarter of all women (25 per cent) admit they have put on make up while behind the wheel and 44 per cent of men have used a mirror to check out a female driver in the car behind.

More worryingly, two per cent of men have shaved in the car and seven per cent have squeezed their spots in the rearview mirror - and it's not just men as six per cent of women have done the same.

Overall, nearly a third (32 per cent) of drivers have checked their appearance in a car mirror with those in the north west being the vainest on the road, as two fifths (40 per cent) admit to having done so.

Furthermore, two thirds of drivers think using a car's mirrors for anything other than motoring reasons is as grave an offence as using a mobile while behind the wheel. Yet some may need to revise their own knowledge of the Highway Code, as the research also revealed that one in ten (10 per cent) did not know the classic advice of "mirror, signal, manoeuvre."

Jacky Brown, spokesperson for Sheilas' Wheels said: "We appear to be a vain nation as we're taking every possible opportunity we can to check out ourselves in a mirror - be it at home, in the car or at our place of work.

"There are enough opportunities in the day to make sure every hair is in place, the lipstick is applied properly or a tie is straight without doing so in a car. When sitting in the drivers seat, it's crucial for all motorists to make sure that their car mirrors are strictly used for driving purposes and not to satisfy their vanity needs - as this lack of concentration can cause a danger not only to themselves, but also other motorists."