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Katie Couric has revealed what she looks like without a scrap of make-up.
The 56-year-old talk show host tweeted a photograph of herself as viewers usually see her - wearing a full face of product - with another showing her au naturel.
She captioned the two images: 'I go makeup-free for today's show!! Who's with me? Here's my before & after.'
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Baring all: Katie Couric tweeted a picture of herself as viewers usually see her (left) - wearing a full face of product - and later appeared on her show wearing no make-up free (right)
Ms Couric was inspired to take on the challenge after interviewing Phoebe Baker Hyde - a mother-of-two who ditched her beauty regime for a year.
The 38-year-old from Brookline, Massachusetts, threw away all of her make-up, cut off her long strawberry blonde hair and stopped shaving her legs in a bid to feel more liberated.
Describing her daily routine during the 12 month-long experiment on the Katie show Ms Hyde said: 'I did what a man would do. Put on deodorant. Put on a little gel and head out the door.'
It was when she moved with her husband, John Liang, to Hong Kong in 2007 that Ms Hyde decided to take up the challenge.
Usual look: TV host Ms Couric is rarely seen without a full face of make-up
She said that she had 'a lot of mirror meltdowns' in the city, where many of the women she met were obsessed with their appearance.
In an excerpt from The Beauty Experiment, a book which details her experience, she explains: 'In February 2007, I threw up the white flag of surrender.
'If someone asked me if I felt beautiful I would have to answer honestly: yes'
Â'I had become a nervous, critical, angry, insecure woman.
'I was not the woman or the role model I wanted to be, especially in front of a big-eyed baby daughter. I was at war with the world around me and at war with myself - the only self I had.
'And so I swore off Beauty and all her trappings: makeup, new clothes, salon haircuts, jewelry, the works. I told very few people what I was doing.'
One of the people she told about her project was her husband, who supported it from day one. Although Ms Hyde said that she did have to convince him about the 'not shaving' part.
Going back to basics: Phoebe Baker Hyde before her experiment (left) and after she decided to stop wearing make-up, visiting salons and shaving (right)
Keeping it simple: During her year-long project Ms Hyde would put on deodorant and a dab of hair gel before she went out - she said that she told very few people about her experiment
On day one she threw away the contents of her make-up bag, and most of her bathroom products.
Her jewelry collection, which included 38 pairs of earrings, was packed away and all of the mirrors in her apartment were covered up.
'When I look in the mirror, I don't see wrinkles... I see a face, a person, a personality, a life'
She then visited a salon where stylists cut 14 inches off her hair and fashioned it into a boyish crop.
While Hong Kong was packed with style-conscious city dwellers, Ms Hyde made a pact with herself to stop shopping for clothes.
At times she was surprised how 'cool' she looked when she experimented with the clothes she had hidden away in her closet.
Inspiring: Ms Hyde's year-long experiment is detailed in The Beauty Experiment
'I looked cooler than I normally would have, like I belonged to some underground art scene,' she told Boston.com.
Before she went out she would put on deodorant and a dab of hair gel and in a year she said she saved around $ 1,000 by not buying any beauty products or clothes.
More than five years on Ms Hyde, who moved back to the U.S. in 2009, sill maintains a simple beauty regime.
Most days he only wears ChapStick and moisturizer and she refuses to buy fashion magazines because 'they just make me cross and yearning'.
Describing how her make-up free experiment changed her outlook, Ms Hyde writes: 'When I look in the mirror, I don’t see wrinkles, anxiety, zits, or exhaustion, although they are all there.
'Instead, I see a face, a person, a personality, a life. If someone asked me if I felt beautiful I would have to answer honestly: yes.'
She admits that the one item she does miss is her under eye concealer.
Katie did it... but could the FEMAIL girls go make-up-free?
Deborah Arthurs, UK Femail Editor
 I used to go bare-faced all the time in my twenties - although even back then I was always armed with lip balm. Now, in my thirties, I wear the works on a night out: red lips, golden bronzer, smoky eyeliner and lashings of mascara. And concealer! Surely it is God's way of telling us women we needn't suffer the indignity of dark circles or spots?
Even on a casual outing I would never go without my trusted tinted moisturiser, lipgloss, mascara and eyebrow pencil.
But the combination of a three-year-old and starting work at 7.30am means something has to give, and it is my day-to-day make-up routine. Thus my poor colleagues have to shield their eyes or face the hideous sight of my pallid skin, pale lips and eyes like a newborn guinea pig.
Needless to say, I hate it. I don't feel at all confident or liberated, I feel plain and dull.
In public, sad as it may seem, I feel invisible without my favourite cosmetics - and I've even been known to sneak over to Space NK for a quick makeover when a surprise engagement cropped up.
I really wish I were the sort who could just wash 'n go and still look amazing, but I'm not.
I, as so many women, look better with my warpaint. Please lord, may we never be parted.
Sadie Whitelocks, Femail Writer
I wouldn’t dare leave the house or turn up to work without make-up. I started wearing concealer as a teenager to cover up the spots that refused to go away.
I’d even wear cover-up to bed because I thought if I couldn’t see the blemishes they would disappear. They didn’t - and I now realise that I was clogging my skin with rubbish.
Eye liner was also my best friend for years and I would hide behind a think slick of kohl. I first realised my relationship with cosmetics had spiralled out of control when, on a school camping trip, a teacher told me I looked like ‘Mother Teresa with eye liner’ as I peered out of my anorak in the rain.
Today I’ve always got a spread of cosmetics to hand. Annoyingly on nights out this means I’m everyone’s best friend in the ladies’ loo.
Every morning I follow the same routine.
Moisturizer, foundation, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara and blusher. Lipstick is the finishing touch.
Even when I went trekking to Everest base camp and camping in Alaska I’ll admit that I applied a little bit of something.
After all if we don’t make the effort then what’s the point? I admire those that pull off a make-up free complexion, but I’ll never give up my mask of slap.
Tamara Abraham, US Femail Editor
I never went without make-up in my twenties â€" foundation, blush and eyeliner were all a non-negotiable part of my daily routine. Now though, at 31, I’m happy to leave home with a bare face from time to time. Perhaps it’s just confidence â€" though I wouldn’t say I’m completely happy sans slap.
I go to work without make-up on occasion, but not regularly. I wouldn’t turn up to a meeting without a little colour, and carry an emergency red lipstick and mascara in my bag just in case.
My skin definitely feels smoother and looks healthier when I leave it bare for a couple of days â€" and the most surprising thing is, nobody seems to notice (though I do face a screen all day long...)
I do like to look polished in the office â€" but I believe that if your skin, hair and nails look good, you CAN get away with a bare face.
Having said that, I’m not quite ready to lose the emergency lippy just yet.
Olivia Fleming, Femail Writer
A boyfriend once threatened to break up with me unless I toned down my one-hour 'getting ready' face time before leaving the house. According to him I wore too much eyeliner, too much foundation, too much blush.
Even though I rolled my eyes and dumped him soon after, I was in college, and after I graduated I figured he was probably right. So I spent my early twenties trying to perfect the 'natural' look. I don't wear a lot of make-up, but apparently I wear enough to freak out if, for example, I change bags and forget to switch over the essentials - mascara, concealer and lip balm. That is until last week, when a good friend of mine, Jenna Sauers, wrote a piece for Jezebel titled: When Is Wearing Makeup A “Choice�
I thought long and hard about her inspired take on a Does Makeup Hurt Self Esteem? piece in the New York Times. It's easy to think women wear make-up because they 'want' to, because it makes them 'feel' better, because it's for 'themselves'. It was definitely easy to think that when I wore it. Because lipstick puts a skip in my step, because I'm 'Worth It,' right?
So decided to see if Jenna's theory, that really, we only wear make-up because of a cultural standard, rather than because we love it, had any standing. I went bare-faced (even to work, and out for dinner with my new, non-judgey boyfriend) for this entire week, just to see if I felt any loss.
At first it was strange, I was worried other people were looking at me like I was breaking a grand social standing of good grooming; but it's now Friday, and not only has no one mentioned my make-up-less face, I completely forgot I wasn't wearing any until my editor asked me to write this.
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