Yes, I still bother with make-up despite working from home – and no, I don’t need your judgement for it

Just as this very strange situation we find ourselves in is allowing our cities to breathe, the current moment also provides an opportunity to let cosmetics simply be what they are – a lot of fun

Related: Michael Gove asked if coronavirus has made the Tories regret underfunding the NHS (iStock)

So, suddenly many of us are working – or not working for that matter – at home. Inevitably, an isolation aesthetic has emerged. For me, it’s all about pigtails and fluffy socks (very Britney circa 1998 I like to tell myself, only with pyjamas rather than short skirts and crop tops…).

I’m also still putting on my favourite lipstick around 50 per cent of the time. I know I don’t have to. I know I’m not going anywhere. But sometimes it makes me feel better to pout at this very, very mad world in red-lipped dismay...

Other friends have embraced the joy of a bra-less foundation-less lifestyle, freed from the tyranny of the outside world’s expectations. This is also an entirely legitimate approach to current circumstances. Or any circumstance really...

The part of this I find weird though, is that, once again, we seem to be seeing a phenomenon of less make-up = more morality rearing its dewy-skinned head – a strange equation where not wearing cosmetics becomes shorthand for a kind of breezy, no-nonsense and therefore aspirational approach to life.

Twitter shares for this article for instance, of gorgeous celebrities daring to bare, have attracted all sorts of commentary suggesting there’s something inherently courageous about having your photo taken without make-up. “Brave”, “real”, “stunning” are all adjectives liberally applied. But this strange fetishisation is harmful – because by implication it suggests what? That we’re opening ourselves up to ridicule and scorn by not attempting to cover whatever imperfections we might have? Why else would it be brave to take our make-up off? Why else would it be deemed an act worthy of subversive applause to wander around in the world with our actual faces showing?

The other, equally unpleasant, strand to this is some good old-fashioned sexism. There’s a cultural myth that says men prefer women without make-up – and many men have earnestly repeated this maxim to me. Some of them probably even meant it – but again, there are all sorts of strange coded messages mixed up in the way we judge the amount of product women put on their faces.

When a friend of mine asked about recommendations for work make-up on social media earlier this year (back in those heady days of leaving the house as often as we wanted), in among the foundation tips and eyeliner suggestions, she was also barraged with replies insisting that too much make-up might suggest she was a certain type of woman: “Who wants to look like some overdone trollop?” (Let’s not even head down the rabbit hole of the horrible misogyny involved in “types” of women in the first place…)

This particular issue becomes starkest when we consider that the women being lauded for their fresh-faced lack of vanity are, for the most part, conventionally drop dead gorgeous anyway. The real virtue here is not to be make-up free but to be make-up free and still look like some sort of goddess. We want to celebrate a lack of cosmetics but only when they reveal glowing complexions and enviable bone structure and it’s an impossible catch-22 situation for many women. We’ve been taught to unthinkingly associate too much make-up with desperation and vanity, but we’re all also terrified of being seen without it in a world where people still think they can tell who we are from what we look like.

There is good news though. Just as this very strange situation we find ourselves in is allowing our cities to breathe and fish to return to our rivers and canals, the current moment also provides an opportunity of sorts for us to just let make-up be make-up. To wear it for ourselves if we feel like it makes us better able to take on the challenges of social distancing and working from home. To enjoy it if we have a love of colour or a desire to play around with the stuff, without immediately being accused of snuggling up to the patriarchy.

Or, just as valid, to ditch it entirely if we’ve been stuck wearing it because we feel we should.

And maybe, when we do go back to work, we can continue to make these choices for ourselves, rather than the rest of the world. Maybe, radically, we can continue to vacillate between these states based not on where we’re going and who we’re seeing, but simply on how we feel on any given day.

Either way, bright lipstick and seven layers of contouring, versus moisturise and go should be as morally neutral as choosing whether to have a sandwich or soup for lunch. Fluffy socks though? They’re a sign of a fundamentally wonderful person – trust me.