The yummiest mummy Elizabeth Hurley

BEIJING, April 25 -- Not so long ago she declared that she was done with bikinis.

    Never again, Elizabeth Hurley said, would she sit eating lunch on a boat in a skimpy two-piece.

    The same went for tripping around the beach in a bikini top and skirt with her midriff showing.

    But as these pictures indicate, Miss Hurley will relax the rules under certain conditions.

    Firstly, it must be in her best business interests, such as helping to launch a series of her own swimwear designs in a diffusion range for the High Street store Mango.

    And there must - read must - be an airbrush involved.

Elizabeth Hurley

In an interview to accompany these photographs in the Sunday Times Style magazine, the model and businesswoman conceded that "shooting bikinis is now my life".

    She said: "I can't think of anything worse in the world than another bikini shoot - and I've got two next month.

    "It's unbearable and I bring it all on myself. I've got nobody else to blame."

    But, she revealed, she now relies on "nice photographers" and a little digital enhancement.

    "I like a certain amount of retouching like anybody," she admitted.

    Even if they have been airbrushed a little, the photos suggest that Miss Hurley, 42, has made good on her promise to "go to ground and annoy everyone by emerging thinner, sexier and mentally cleansed".

    She made that vow in an interview in 2005, at the same time as she spoke of instituting her bikini ban.

    Miss Hurley, a mother of one, revealed that when she looked in the mirror she saw "a person who eats too much junk food and doesn't exercise. That has sadly become my reality over the past year."

    Commenting on one of her own designs for Elizabeth Hurley Beach, she said her days of wearing a towelling miniskirt, bikini top and flip-flops were over.

    "I don't feel comfortable doing that any more," she said. "As the years go by you do feel less confident about your body."

    Miss Hurley is not afraid to follow strict diets when she needs to drop weight fast.

    Her regime after the birth of son Damian, now six, was punishing, she said at the time.

    "I did it by eating very little breakfast and not too much lunch.

    "And only boring snacks such as a banana or six raisins. The only meal I have is dinner."

    She lost four stone, and was back in her trademark white jeans within three months of Damian's birth.