We need a bit of balance on our social media feeds. The highlight and contour is all well and lovely, but sometimes we need a little perspective. That’s why we love that the 2017 Roses of Tralee have formed a collective, and shown their beautiful bare faces to the world, in a bid to remind us all that we all look very different on Instagram to how we wake up in the morning.

Louth Rose, Aoife Heffron explained on her blog AoifeJane.com that while many of the roses felt anxious and unsure about joining in, they were all empowered in the long run.

“In a world where you can change how you look with a couple of taps on a screen, where there are societal pressures to ‘look’ a certain way, where beauty can seem to mean only one thing and where people present a sometimes unrealistic version of themselves online because of this, we decided to remind people just what BEAUTY really is,” she wrote.

She went on to say that she had fallen victim of feeling inadequate or “ugly” because she doesn’t look like the girls on Instagram saying, “I’ve struggled with my hair loss, my acne and how I look in general. I still do! I’m not alone, however when sharing our pictures, many of my fellow Roses voiced their own insecurities, be it uneven skin tone, acne scarring, dark circles, their eyebrows….you name it.”

TBH, all we saw was sparkly eyes, big smiles, and open hearts. Well done girls, yis are legends x

You can read Aoife’s blog post here.