How a ‘No Makeup Selfie’ Trend Suddenly Became a Cancer Awareness Effort

In an age when social media has made us even more aware of how we look at any given moment ("A picture? Now? Wait, how's my hair?"), asking women to take photos of themselves without makeup and upload them to social channels seems risky. And yet, thousands are doing it in the U.K. in the name of cancer awareness.

A "No makeup selfie" campaign grew organically in Britain in recent weeks, and ended up raising several million pounds for Cancer Research U.K., even though the group initially had nothing to do with the effort.

Author Laura Lippman apparently started the trend to support actress Kim Novak, whose looks were criticized at the Oscars. Others picked up on the idea, and somehow the hashtag #breastcancerawareness and donation links to Cancer Research U.K. started getting added to the selfies. "It's brilliant it's raising so much money. It's totally unexpected because it wasn't something we planned," a rep for the group tells Britain's Telegraph newspaper.

Because most interesting ideas need a fun spinoff, the hashtag #manupandmakeup also started trending, as men put on makeup to raise money for Prostate Cancer U.K.

If this raises cash or awareness, cool. #nomakeupselfie @CR_UK I donated here http://t.co/5hHvAQ3vKZ boys? Your turn! pic.twitter.com/YdUQ94G1yW

— suzi perry (@suziperry) March 21, 2014

Has your feed has been full of #nomakeupselfies this week?The @CR_UK campaign has raised £2m http://t.co/ke0xlQwmBg pic.twitter.com/kjiPpG3SWU

— Maddy Savage (@maddysavage) March 22, 2014

Thanks to all of you who have donated because of the #nomakeupselfie trend. We are overwhelmed by your support! pic.twitter.com/GjH38dufuV

— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) March 19, 2014