The No-Make-Up Selfie: Have You Noticed It Too?

Most women look so much younger!

Make-up...we either use too much, not enough or the wrong kind it seems. It always looks so easy, flawless and self explanatory in the ads. We all forget that the ads feature glamourous models who have no flaws and when we get to see the ad, they have been air brushed vigorously!

For those of you who don't know about this latest craze sweeping the virtual world and I know my parents don't do Facebook, here is the crux of it: Your friends dare you to post a picture of yourself sans make-up. Bare and all. The true you. The idea is to create awareness for cancer ( I am not sure how that works, but it must somehow ). In the last week or so, our message streams on Facebook got overwhelmed with pictures of our friends posting a selfie au natural...

By the way, a Selfie is a self portrait taken with your Smartphone and posted straight away into your virtual social circle. Like anything else that is new, it gets overdone. Celebrities do it, politicians do it and now everyone else,it seems is doing it...provided you have a Smartphone.

But back to the no make-up selfies. The most curious thing jumps to mind ( and to eye ) and I wonder whether you have also noticed it? Most women look so much younger. Oh yes, without make-up they look on average 5-10 years younger. In some cases I had to look twice because I mistook a woman for her daughter.

Are we doing ourselves any favours, wearing make-up? Is make-up not there to help us look younger ( the over 30's of course )? To enhance a certain feature or hide a not so nice one. A most, unwelcome thought occurred to me...

Remember when we were young, there were always a few women who still did make-up the way it was fashionable when they were teens. In my age category it was the bright blue eye shadow all over the lid accompanied by generous lashings of mascara. It might have been the " in " look in the 70's but hardly made for the 80's. Not that these women noticed. In fact they thought they looked cool. Here is the thing, are we in the same boat now...imagining we are with-it yet we are resembling the blue eye shadow brigade?

Well, those selfies are doing us a favour because they show us our true beauty. Yes, all the nominated selfie lot are fine just as nature made them. Of course, I am hoping they didn't use a fancy App to Photoshop or airbrush themselves!

Have you noticed it too...how young your friends look without make-up?

Biggi