HARD-HITTING posters will soon go up around Swindon pubs and clubs warning women that they risk losing their looks if they carry on boozing too hard.

On Monday, the Evening Advertiser revealed the extent to which women in Swindon were drinking each week, with many downing up to 15 bottles of alcopops a night, plus shots of spirits.

While many see this as just part of being young and enjoying growing up, there is a hidden danger.

Medical experts have warned of the health problems that constantly abusing the liver can bring for a long time, but now posters will warn women of the damage they can wreak on their looks.

The Portman Group, a body funded by the drinks industry to promote what it calls responsible drinking, is funding the posters and postcards.

They feature a spoof cosmetic called Masq Crme de Regret and a bottle with the logo of a woman holding her head while vomiting.

Among the dire warnings are examples of how alcohol can lead to weight gain, broken veins under the skin's surface, bloodshot eyes, and also leave women smelling of drink the morning after. Jean Coussins, chief executive of the Portman Group, said: "Binge drinking plays havoc with your skin as it dehydrates.

"Drinking too much also interrupts your beauty sleep which means you may not look your best the next day."

Peter Crouch, who is a GP in Taw Hill and is also Wiltshire's principal police surgeon, has backed the campaign, as he says he all too often sees the damaging after-effects of alcohol.

"Men and women have always done two forms of drinking, one of which, chronic alcoholism, has traditionally affected more men," he said.

"But we have noticed more and more from both sexes binge drinking, and an alarming rise in young women.

"As the police surgeon I take my hat off to the police they try wherever possible to take those people home if they are found drunk on the streets at 3am, providing a safety service.

"But people who are stumbling home drunk are very vulnerable, whether from falling over into the road and the traffic, or not making rational decisions meaning they can be preyed upon."

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that women drinking to excess rose from one in 10 in 1988-9 to one in six in 2002-3.

Tom Morton