THESE days she appears in Vanity Fair's best-dressed female authors list and turns up at premieres wearing dresses by Oscar De La Renta and heels by Christian Laboutin,

THESE days she appears in Vanity Fair's best-dressed female authors list and turns up at premieres wearing dresses by Oscar De La Renta and heels by Christian Laboutin,

But JK Rowling says she resents having to make an effort with her appearance since she became famous.

Speaking on Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 today, Rowling, 48, says she decided to "tidy myself up a bit" when people began to comment on how she looked when she first began to appear in the public eye after the success of her Harry Potter books.

"I would be a liar if I said I don't care," she admits on the programme, which she is also guest-editing.

"I found it very difficult, when I first became well-known, to read criticism about how I looked, how messy my hair was, and how generally unkempt I looked.

"I did tidy myself up a bit. But I do often resent the amount of time it takes to pull yourself together to go on TV."

Rowling is the first guest editor in Woman's Hour's 67-year history and in the programme she will highlight the plight of the world's eight million children forced to live in institutions.

She is also tackling why Scotland has the highest number of multiple sclerosis sufferers in the world, and her loves of rugby and shoes.

But speaking to presenter Jane Garvey she also argues women are under greater pressure than their male counterparts in terms of public image.

"It must be so nice to be a man and just think 'which of the three suits will I wear today?' and nobody would say a thing.

"With us it's our weight, our clothes, how we're ageing, our hair."

Rowling says she wishes she was strong-willed and didn't care how others see her, but describes herself as "weak-willed".

The best-selling author also reveals that it was "painful" that her mother never knew about her enormous success.

She described the "guilt and worry and anxiety" brought on by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis. Her mother died aged 45.