“If you actually ask a guy what kind of women they like, a lot of them say natural.”

Real conversations with real women about the impact makeup has on their lives.

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“As soon as you’re yourself and you’re comfortable being you anyone who thinks ‘oh, you’re not good enough’ doesn’t deserve you. “ Natalie

“I think makeup kind of started off as a way of growing up, and making myself feel more like a woman. Not that I felt like I looked really young, but you do start to familiarize yourself with movies, and the media, and you see these beautiful women with beautiful long eyelashes. You don’t start to feel insecure right away. But you do start to think you should look like that. So it starts off small. I started with mascara. And then I learnt more. And then I started to rely on makeup. You get to the point where you can’t really recognize your skin without it, and then what you do see is ugly, and you have the feeling that you need to cover it up. And if someone else is wearing more, you feel like you’re not wearing enough.

It becomes a competition of who can be the most beautiful. Being yourself becomes seen as boring, or undesirable. We’re all constantly trying to impress someone. The funny thing is that if you actually ask a guy what kind of women they like, a lot of them say “natural, with less makeup”. But they always go for the ones with the most makeup. They don’t know anything about makeup. They probably think that she’s born with it. But it’s like five pounds of MAC. Do you ever feel like you didn’t have a choice when it came to makeup? Yeah. At one point, if I even had to go to the shops quickly and get something, I felt like I needed to wear mascara and use concealer on my pimples. I was scared I’d meet someone I knew and they’d think, “oh, she’s actually really ugly – she’s not worthy”. You’re putting out this image and you feel like you need to keep up with it. What would you say to someone who’s feeling that way right now? Over the past few years I’ve slowly started to put down the makeup, and slowly phase it out. And my advice would be to have makeup free days Learn to love your skin, and yourself. Anyone else who thinks any differently doesn’t deserve you. It’s a good filter. As soon as you’re yourself and you’re comfortable being you anyone who thinks ‘oh, you’re not good enough’ doesn’t deserve you. Because if they think that you need to look a certain way then it’s good to get rid of them. And if not wearing makeup does that, then good. Then you can just be your authentic self. At the end of the day, makeup is a form of expression, but if you don’t know who you are without it, then who are you? It shouldn’t be your identity, it should be an extension of yourself if anything. It should never be your whole self. And if you can’t have a day where you’re just makeup free and happy within yourself, then that’s just an awful feeling. At first it’s hard. There were a few times I’d go out and I thought, god I feel ugly. And you’d see a really goegrous girl with a beautiful complextion and you feel so self consious. Even right now with my pimples I feel super self conscious and like I need to wear makeup.

At work, I used to not wear makeup. But lately, I’ve been wearing makeup to cover up the pimples. But then there’s an infinite cycle. Pimples, makeup, pimples, makeup – because the pimples are caused by the makeup. So I would just say, just be yourself. It’s so hard at the start. But at the end, it feels so good to just be happy within you. And it feels so good to just go home and go straight to bed!

Real conversations with real women about the impact makeup has on their lives.

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