Here we are again: the annual summer no-make-up make-up story. Yes, you’ve read it all before - it’s the one that tells you how to make your skin look “sun-kissed” with a “dewy finish”. And you need only 253 products to get the look.

Some women take the no make-up story literally: think Tilda Swinton at this year’s Oscars. Where was the discreet eyeliner, the pretty pink blush, the nude lipstick, cried the media. The woman should be certified! And yet, is it really such sacrilege? It’s the look 90% of us do - or rather, don’t do - most days. We all know why we’re supposed to love make-up: it makes us look young, beautiful, fresh; it hides hangovers, affairs, break-ups, illness, bad days. But a bare face? Apart from the fact that it’s stunningly easy, here are 10 good reasons why it’s best to go naked.

1 WE DON’T WANT TO LOOK LIKE EVA LONGORIA That face! How many hours in front of the mirror trowelling it on? How big and bulging is her make-up bag? How many cotton buds does she get through scraping it off each night? Sorry, love, too much work for a look that puts you squarely behind a provincial department-store perfume counter.

2 IT DOESN’T DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE BOX Does applying 10 coats of mascara really make you look like Penelope Cruz? Make-up isn’t surgery. There are limits even to what YSL Touche Eclat can do. As Lucy Ewing, fashion director of Style and a self-confessed no-make-up woman, says: “I probably should make more of an effort to look glamorous for my job, but I spend my whole life styling young, beautiful girls for photoshoots, and there is a part of me that thinks, ‘What’s the point?’ Is make-up going to help? Probably not.”

3 WE’D RATHER STAY IN BED Yes, I know it’s shocking, but given the choice of a few more minutes under the duvet and setting the alarm earlier so you can curl your lashes and blot your lipstick, we’d rather walk naked into the day.

4 WE LOOK YOUNGER WITHOUT IT Make-up can make you look older. I give you Victoria Beckham’s pancake base and severe red lips at the Costume Institute Gala in New York last month as evidence. That goes for almost everyone. All those girl-women, whose uniform is Converse, cashmere and jeans, look 10 years younger than those with make-up artists on speed-dial and ambassador’s-wife blow-dries. Compare and contrast: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Gwyneth Paltrow on the school run. See?

5 WE’RE NOT ALL OUT TO PULL BOYS The musician and former model Alice Temple has always hated wearing make-up, but she didn’t realise until her twenties that it had a lot to do with being gay. “From the age of three, I was a tomboy and my friends were boys,” she says. “Then, when girls around me started wearing make-up, I assumed they were doing it to attract boys, which, subconsciously, I didn’t feel right about.” Now she says that it can be a turn-off: “There are plenty of gay girls out there who do wear make-up, but I only fancy beautiful women, and they don’t need it.”

6 SOMETIMES WE ARE OUT TO PULL BOYS, BUT NOT WITH LIP GLOSS Many men can’t stand the stuff, either. “Men notice women who don’t wear make-up,” says Robert Wyatt, Ewing’s photographer husband. He appreciates her natural beauty. “A lot of women try to find themselves with make-up, but it is a barrier. When the odds start stacking up against you, and you’re getting older or mixing with a glamorous set, you feel under pressure to start putting on more, but I love the fact that Lucy doesn’t do that.”

7 WE’RE STILL GETTING OVER THE LAST TIME WE WORE IT I’m still recovering from the time when a friend shared her No 17 blue eye shadow and frosted pink lipstick with the dormitory at my convent boarding school. For this and associated crimes, we had to kneel before the nuns, begging forgiveness. (Frankly, it’s a wonder I haven’t turned this into a bestselling misery-lit memoir.)

8 WHO NEEDS MAKE-UP WHEN YOU CAN HAVE TATTOOS? Okay, perhaps this one isn’t going to suit your average bank manager, but there are other avenues of self-expression than black eyeliner and lip gloss. Temple’s back is covered with the tattoo of a skull, her neck bears a rose and her hand has a delicate swallow. Who needs average?

9 IT FEELS PECULIAR You can’t have a good cry if you’re wearing mascara. Neither can you rub your eyes when you feel tired. Sometimes your skin feels like plaster. Then there are the trips to the ladies’ for touch-ups, where you wrestle drunkenly with smudged eyeliner and the individual fake lashes that the girl on the Mac counter persuaded you were a really good idea.

10 IT’S TOO LATE If you’ve never done it before, why start now? As my friend Daisy Piper, a former model, says: “I’d like to do smoky eyes, but I can’t be bothered to practise. And if I start wearing make-up now, everyone will notice.”

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