Man with jam and cucumber slap…

This image unsettles me, scares me even. I look like a character from Frankie’s banned Relax video. Why would I do such a thing to myself? Why indeed.

I’ve been intrigued by all those selfies of women without their makeup that have been inundating my Facebook page. Apparently they’ve raised £2m so far for Cancer Awareness which is mental, as the young people say. I’ve looked into it (well Googled actually) and the movement was probably initiated by author Laura Lippman, who uploaded a picture of her face sans makeup in solidarity with actress Kim Novak who was ridiculed for the way she looked at the Oscars.

If you ask me most of the women at the Oscars look slightly odd, but it seems to have grown organically from there, and very quickly as these online phenomena do. I’m not entirely sure how the link to cancer came about. It wasn’t put out there by Macmillan or any other cancer charity as a campaign, so I guess it just happened like spontaneous combustion.

Women everywhere stripped off their make up and uploaded pictures of themselves in often very unflattering light. Knowing the way women feel about their appearance (well, I have known a few girls), I have to say I think them all very brave.

Of course there has been criticism of the whole shenanigans with some commentators claiming that it is more about ego and vanity than charity and does nothing for raising cancer awareness at all. They say that it’s dangerous groupthink driven by not wanting to be left out and needing to be part of the herd.

Ego and vanity? Shmego and scmanity. The cash result speaks for each and every one of them.

Of course, not to be left out through gender, many men have jumped on the bandwagon, posting pics of themselves on Facebook in makeup.

Well, I’ve never been one not to jump up on the bandwagon as it passes, so when I was ‘nominated’ by a ‘friend’ I produced this quite disturbing image. I didn’t have any makeup to hand, so I used strawberry jam for my lippy and blusher, with cucumber slices for eye decoration. I think it’s an interesting look, very Grayson Perry, and I’m sure that Lucian Freud would have approved of my shirtless, lumpy, body and face.

Of course I made this image for my own egotistical ends, vanity, and the jam - I really like jam. The worrying thing is though, the more I look at it, the more I see myself as I really am. It obviously helps me being bonkers, but under all that jam I think there may be somebody trying to tell me something quite disturbing.

The upside of all of this, like all those makeup free women, that after I’d done this I felt the need to donate; and that has to be a good thing. Anyway, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.