Beauty, Bumble & Beyond

In a world in which we’re constantly trying to present our best selves, what happens when you take #nofilter seriously and go on dates without any makeup? Elle swipes right on going natural.

- Emily Pritchard

RECENTLY, MY FRIEND – who we’ll call Amy – went on a Bumble date. It went something like this: initial attraction, right swipe, some chat, a date, a kiss and then… nothing. Ghosted. She whatsapped her match – who we’ll call Sam – to see whether a second date was on the cards. She’s persistent, our Amy. “It’s just that you had the audacity to turn up without any makeup on. It’s like you couldn’t even be bothered to make an effort,” he replied. What the…? Needless to say, that was the end of Sam. And is it really, in the vein of a Jane Austen novel, that audacious to head out to attract a mate with your own unadorned face? The collective outrage this story has garnered from every angle (colleagues, friends, people on the bus) very much points to the obvious misogyny at play, yet it haunts me slightly as I contemplate my own curated Bumble profile. Liking, as I do, to believe the best in humankind, I trust I’m unlikely to run into a specimen like Sam. But I can’t help wondering: do my six best profile photos faithfully represent an authentic version of me IRL? And, even as someone with the most minimal of makeup routines, would I ever date barefaced?

A staggering majority of us now wear makeup regularly, with 83 per cent of women wearing it every day, according to a 2017 Mintel survey. This, perhaps, goes part way to explaining why a lack of makeup, rather than a surplus of it, stands out more in the dating landscape today. Indeed, of more than 1,500 women surveyed, 72 per cent seemed to view makeup as a vital part of online dating, claiming they would “never” go on a first date without makeup. While wearing red lipstick on a date is hardly a modern phenomenon, this raises the question: do the contents of our bathroom cabinets now carry greater significance, as we aim to live up to the “perfect” versions of ourselves that we project to our online