JUST when you thought the beauty world could not get any weirder, it goes and outdoes its pretty little self.

Not content with persuading us to stab our foreheads with botulism, fasten hooks into our faces and burn off layers of skin in our desperation to turn back time, now it transpires we are revisiting the Middle Ages with the return of leech therapy.

Russia, the world’s biggest supplier of the slimy creatures, is reporting a surge in sales as beauty spas convince well-heeled women it’s time for slime.

About as far as you could possibly get from the hi-techness of the Ribbon Lift (that’s the one that sticks the hooks under your skin – ouch!), leech therapy dates back to Ancient Egypt.

In those days, it was believed the little bloodsuckers could cure all sorts of ills. Now we are to somehow buy the idea that sticking them on us will refresh our looks.

It’s not the craziest idea in the world. Doctors have been using leeches for some time, particularly in plastic surgery where they can help with the re-attachment of limbs because they secrete a natural anaesthetic that helps to prevent the blood from clotting.

I’m just not convinced that slapping a load of them on my face is going to bring back the skin I had at 18 – then again, my 18-year-old skin was covered in spots.

As with most bizarre beauty regimes, leech therapy has a Hollywood devotee. The apparently ageless Demi Moore praised leeching in a TV interview, saying: “They have a little enzyme that when they are biting down in you it gets released in your blood and generally you bleed for quite a bit – and your health is optimised. It detoxifies your blood – I’m feeling very detoxified right now.”