Picture perfect
When did being yourself, asks Bryony Gordon, become a public act of bravery?
This week, I wasted approximately three minutes of my life watching a video on Instagram that featured a 20-something model showcasing her “no-makeup makeup routine.” It involved concealer, blush, setting powder, mascara ... there was an awful lot of makeup required to pull off this nomake-up look, and by the end of the video, I was left with sad wrinkles around my eyes and lips from frowning, wrinkles that I would need to fill in with a lot of makeup makeup, as opposed to no-makeup makeup.
I felt a sense of fury — mostly with myself — that I would never get those three minutes back. Then I remembered that it could be a lot worse — that, given the proliferation on social media of these no-makeup makeup videos, I could feasibly spend every waking minute of my day watching them.
These videos are usually uploaded by beautiful “influencers” who are so young, they are still doused in their mother’s amniotic fluid.
But this month, Cindy Crawford treated us to her “getting out the door as fast as I can” makeup regimen. This included an “activating” serum, a “lifting” eye cream, some “de-puffing globes,” moisturizer, foundation, two types of concealer, powder, eyebrow definer, eyeshadow, mascara, blush and lipstick. Her “getting out of the door as fast as I can” makeup regimen will set you back hundreds of dollars but makes no mention of the incredible supermodel genes that Crawford was born with, which are priceless and presumably make a massive difference to her ability to look polished and glamorous at the school gates or the supermarket.
I don’t know about you, but my “getting out the door as fast as I can” regimen involves, well ... putting on some clothes, and getting out the door as fast as I can.
This would pass muster in the days when only models on billboards were airbrushed, but with the rise of Instagram, Photoshop and apps such as Facetune, we are all expected to leave the house looking like we are going to walk the red carpet at the Oscars, even if all we have to do is take the garbage out or take our child to school.
Being seen completely barefaced is now so unusual that, on the rare occasions that it happens on social media, people are given the Instagram equivalent of the St. George’s Cross, as if being photographed without any foundation on is on a par with rescuing children from a burning building. At what point did it become “brave” to simply be yourself ?
The other day, I saw a post on Instagram advertising a face mask that is sold in many shops. It featured testimonials from “real” customers.
“Before I used this mask, I had pores,” said one, “but afterwards, I didn’t!” In which case, I hope someone rushed you to a hospital for urgent medical care, because if we didn’t have pores, we wouldn’t be able to regulate our body temperature. If we didn’t have pores, we would die.
Do you remember when Posh Spice first became famous, and everyone jokingly mocked her for pouting all the time and not smiling? She was the exception, not the rule.
But now nobody smiles in pictures any more, almost every selfie is a mini-photo shoot where the subject wants to look as if they are on the cover of Vogue.
Social media sometimes feels like a sea of misery, an ocean of people looking out who are really looking in, trying desperately to present to the world a different version of them, a less true one. The camera never lies, they say. But it does.
You have to wonder about the mental health of a generation growing up to believe that the best way to be human can be found in not looking human at all.
I love makeup as much as the next woman. When I’m going out to an event or a party, it is great. But do you know what’s even greater?
The ability to live my life knowing that my worth is defined by the stuff inside my head, rather than the stuff that is on it.