Paltrow has often used no make-up selfies as a way of celebrating the innate, natural beauty of women. Which isn’t to say that if you love to put on make-up you are going against that idea, but rather that wearing make-up should always be a choice that you make for yourself.

On her 44th birthday in 2016, Paltrow shared a bare-faced selfie to reinforce that message.

“One of the most interesting thing about being a woman is that around the time you turn 40, you get what I like to call a software upgrade,” Paltrow explained in a statement. “The future suddenly has scarcity to it, and the past is all over your face. I have been very inspired by the #nomakeup movement as the message behind it says, here I am, this is me. This is what I look like, this is where I am in time, and I embrace it.”

In the intervening years since sharing that first image, Paltrow has continued to prioritise make-up free selfies and images on her social media channels. A brief scroll through her Instagram grid reveals almost a dozen bare-faced pictures. “I love how you look so natural,” one commenter wrote, on an image of Paltrow and her two children in May 2019.

Gwyneth Paltrow just threw a “no make-up” party for this very important reason