Bare faced cheek

From Rihanna to Holly Willoughby, going without make up is the latest celebrity ruse to hit the headlines. Can Edel Coffey do it for a day?

BARE FACED beauty. I always thought that was a contradiction in terms. I come from a family where leaving the house without lipstick was anathema, even if it was just to go to the corner shop for milk.

In the funeral home, when my beloved grandmother passed away, all I could think about was that her lipstick was not right and how much she would have hated that.

What can I say, generation after generation of women in my family have kept a lipstick and powder on their person at all times, like a sort of SOS emergency kit. There was no problem a dab of blusher and new application of lipstick could not solve.

For me make-up is a sort of magical talisman. If I’m feeling weary, lacklustre or uninspired, I’ll amp up the mascara, switch lipstick to an intense red, and while I may still feel weary at least the world need not know.

For me, make-up provides more than just a way to prettify your face. It is armour, a mask behind which you can hide every flaw, both real and imagined.

That naturally brings me to the question why must we hide our flaws so comprehensively? While I may never be able to be parted from my eyeliner, I am completely baffled by the caked-on, drag-queen trend that dominates celebrity culture.

Jordan, Cheryl Cole, Kim Kardashian, all look like plastic dolls beneath their false eyelashes, hair extensions and pancake faces. I always suspected they looked more beautiful without make-up and the rare photographs revealing them in such unguarded moments reveal this to be true.

A kick-back of sorts has begun against the tyranny of full make-up and grooming. Most recently, Kirsten Dunst was in the news because she dared to step out wearing — wait for it — not a screed of make-up on her perfect little doll’s face, at couture week in Paris, above all places!

She could not have garnered more headlines had she announced she was going to be Tom Cruise’s third bride.

It wasn’t one of those caught out doing your shopping by the paparazzi moments either. She was leaving the hotel to go to a fashion show. She intended her au naturel look. She was perfectly dressed and her hair was styled.

On close inspection of the photographs (er, for research purposes) I think she is wearing some make-up, just not the kind of trowelled on, full-face look we’ve come to expect from celebrities. In fact, it was an altogether Parisienne look.

Think of actresses like Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy or Charlotte Gainsbourg — they never seem to be wearing any make-up at all, opting for minimal enhancement as opposed to masking.

Perhaps their approach is best — they focus on the skin’s health, opting for regular treatments and facials to enhance their natural beauty rather than covering up problems.

It should come as no surprise then that it was the French edition of Elle magazine that kicked off the whole trend way back in 2009 by releasing a no make-up issue featuring ‘stars sans fards’ (stars without make-up) on their cover, including Eva Herzigova, Monica Bellucci and Charlotte Rampling. All looked beautiful and reassuringly human.

In the last year, the trend has taken to the streets. We’ve seen Beyonce step out without a scrap of make-up and manage to look gorgeous, flaws and all. We’ve seen the Twitterati try to outdo each other by posting barefaced pictures of themselves (I’m looking at you Holly Willoughby).

Kim Kardashian looked unrecognisable without her face paint and Rihanna looks unbelievably gorgeous. Jessica Biel regularly appears without make-up, and the list stretches on, including Reese Witherspoon, Kirstin Stewart, Eva Mendes, Gaga, Diane Kruger, Amanda Seyfried, Snook from Jersey Shore (what a revelation that was!)… Kirsten Dunst is a latecomer to the party. It seems everyone wants in on the barefaced look, so I decided to give it a go myself.

As already mentioned, I am surgically attached to my make-up. I think I look better with it, but do concede that putting it on and taking it off is a time-consuming chore.

Here’s what I wear every day: eye concealer and corrector (I am generally sleep-deprived), a tiny bit of light foundation followed by face powder, bronzer and blusher, mascara and eyeliner, occasionally eye shadow, lip gloss or lipstick. I look in the mirror at the pale face looking back at me… I look like Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, all featureless face and invisible eyelashes. My eyes look like raisins embedded in a flaccid lump of dough.

I find the time I would have saved not putting on my makeup is more than squandered by staring in horror at my reflection. I tilt my head down. Cavernous eye bags appear. I tilt my head back and a wash of UV light makes them disappear. I wonder could I walk around with my head thrown back for the entire day. I wonder how I am going to leave the house like this.

Then the fact that I have to commit this all to a photograph races across my mind. I have all sorts of great plans for the week leading up to the photoshoot. I’ll get a facial, an eyebrow threading, some fake tan and an eyelash tint. I vow to drink gallons of water between now and then … somehow I never got around to it.

I bite the bullet and head for work, sans make-up.

I arrive early, wanting to sneak into position with the least attention. When my first colleague arrives he notices something is different. I am glugging from a giant bottle of water and I see him connect this with my blotchy face and come up with a satisfactory explanation that I must be hungover.

Throughout the day there are meaningful questions — are you feeling okay — you look a little peaky? There were compliments too, telling me I looked ‘summery’ and ‘fresh’.

Every time I went to the bathroom, however, was a shocker. I was living that nightmare when you suddenly realise you’ve been walking around naked all day. I felt thoroughly exposed and very vulnerable. The whole look started to have an anti-placebo effect — because I looked exactly how I look when I am ill (the only time I don’t wear make-up), I began to feel ill.

Frankly, despite my terror, for the most part people didn’t even notice. It’s a good reminder that people hardly register your existence, never mind whether you are or are not wearing make-up today. They’ve got their own problems.

Having said all that, there was a strange liberation in being make-up free. While undoubtedly the fact that anyone might have been looking at me was all in my head, I still felt a kind of enjoyable defiance at going around without those enforced accoutrements of femininity and I’m not so scared of it anymore. In fact, I may just start venturing to the local shop without lipstick.