The article was also picked up by the Daily Mail's Femail pages, with a kind of shock-horror coverage. Zut alors, no airbrushing either.

In real life, of course, many women - perhaps most women - don't wear makeup on a daily basis. But women's magazines, and many other publications, make the majority of their money from product advertising, especially beauty products, so they're keen to pretend we're all mad makeup wearers.

I thought all the women featured looked younger without their slap, so out of interest I called the DH over. He said: "Mmn. All of these women look more interesting without makeup. Prettier with it, maybe, but more interesting without."

In my experience, that's quite a common reaction from the unfairer sex. Men who actually like women generally prefer them to look natural and although they may find made-up women attractive at a distance, few of them want to see a caked face in close-up. Most of all, they loathe getting lipstick or face powder smeared all over them in a clinch.

Two things struck me about the article though. One was how some of the women clearly have such issues about their looks - one described herself as looking '72' without makeup, when in fact makeup made her look hard-faced. Meanwhile, Fearne Cotton described herself as looking 'like an egg' - being the youngest, she is probably the most impressionable. But the truth is, in makeup, she looks - well, like everyone else on television but without it, you see for the first time those huge Bette Davis eyes.

Makeup artists often don't serve their subjects well, but it makes you wonder what a Westmore might have made of her, in those great Hollywood days before beauty became identikit.