Me, Myself & Selfies without Make Up

Time for a Monday Moan. And I have chewed this particular one over for a few days now, as in - is it worth a post? What is it that's so grating, for me? Are there deeper issues here (well the answer to this almost always is ye, obviously)?

Unless you have spent last week blissfully sans Internet, you surely have come across the odd (pah!) No Make-Up selfie, all for a great cause - to raise cancer awareness and money for Cancer Research UK. You couldn't log onto Facebook, Twitter etc without coming across photos with the #nomakeupselfie tag. And here is the thing: After the 20th or so picture popping up, I started to get irritated. Aaaaand then another one. Ok, awareness raised, money donated. But did it stop? Not for another few days. Like a crippling spring flu, it had gone viral.

Now, this campaign did raise £2million for the charity, which is a fantastic achievement. Especially if you consider that it grew organically, and, seemingly wasn't organised as such by any charity or PR agency. Cancer Research UK confessed to being "overwhelmed with donations and support". So all's well that ends well, right?

Hm.I suppose what bothers me started out with the question what a make-up free face has to do with cancer. Is the act of taking a selfie without make-up so harrowing, that the audience is supposed to think "Well done you, that is very brave. Having seen your selfless act, here's my donation"?

Well, five selfies in and up popped one pseudo-make-up free one. Eyeliner and mascara very evident. And I received many that had clearly been the umptienth one taken, at "that" angle, filters applied etc. It got so bad that I asked myself what the point was if people were clearly cheating. Surely the whole point was lightyears away from a vanity project, which turned out to be a double whammy: "Not only am I a very charitable person, see, I am also flawless without make up!" I could almost insert a smug "Yippee" here.

Some of the #nomakeupselfies didn't fool anyone.

As one can guess, I am not a fan. If people are truly inspired, please go to to the Cancer Research website, where you can donate any amount - one off, monthly, whatever suits you - for a fantastic cause. No need to shout about it, do something nice for the sake of it, regardless of your facebook or twitter friends knowing about it. Trust me, it will make you feel better than looking at your photoshopped selfie.