"Beauty is the way you hold yourself, it's how you treat people. The way you love. It's self-acceptance. Beauty is your soul."
I had been wearing makeup for as long as I can remember, as the act of covering my face in it ironically made me feel comfortable in my own skin. So, as a social experiment, I went makeup-less for 40 days.
The results -- shocking.
40 days without makeup, and no one noticed. Turns out, people don’t care…in the best way possible. The diminishing use of eyeliner and eyeshadow enhanced my eyes to the beauty of a stripped-down complexion. And with no one noticing, I took notice of 5 new things:
1) A commitment to not caring.
When the social experiment began, I was profoundly fearful, as beauty was a concept, I, like most women, struggle with daily to feel satisfaction in. When I walked into a room, I couldn't help but wonder what percentage of people were silently questioning what happened to me. People had only ever seen me with makeup on, so if my image suddenly changed, my mind assumed their perceptions of me would as well. I began making assumptions that others were judging me based off my naked face.
As the 40 days progressed, I found makeup doesn’t “make up” you, and makeup isn’t beauty; it’s a tool that leads to physical charm and an impressive facial structure. It’s a beauty with no real depth because it only goes skin deep. Your real identity is rooted from a beauty that is built in your bones, not from your surface complexion. It was only when I committed to not caring about what was on the surface that I recognized where true beauty lies.
2) Added time to the day.
With the time I would typically use to put on my makeup each morning, take off, and then put on again to go out for the night, I found patches of time to scatter around. Time to eat breakfast by the spoonful, rather than inhaling it in one bite. Time to sit down and reply to a few emails, watch a Ted Talk, or call up a friend. Not spending time on perfecting my look allowed me to spend time appreciating the little things I could add to my daily rhythm.
3) A boost in confidence.
This time when insecurity crept up on me, I couldn’t just slab mascara on and call it a day. For the first time, I had to find confidence in something beyond the security blanket that makeup brought. However, when people didn't seem to care, I stopped caring as well. For the first time, I found confidence in a faith rooted in myself, over the makeup on myself.
4) Self-worth.
Nowadays, makeup has turned into a societal concealer for flaws and blemishes. The world screams, “If you can cover up your imperfections, no one will notice them. You’ll exude your best self.” But where's the authenticity in that? There is none...
Although perfection is an attribute we all feel pressured to embrace, we must love who we are over the image we strive to uphold. The halt in covering up my blemishes actually brought about an authenticity to who I was. The front I previously felt I needed to maintain now felt irrelevant. My personality took the driver's seat.
5) A new perspective
Without makeup, I started noticing the people who took my 40-day sacrifice and applied it their lives on a daily basis. They didn’t need makeup to carry them through the day, thus, my perspective of beauty took on a whole new meaning.
Those 40 days have come and gone, 3 years later, still with the desire to keep my makeup minimal. Yes, there will always be things about my body that I will want to change, that’s the human in me. But the end of the day, I've learned to exude a confidence of personality over presence. Letting my decisions and reactions, not makeup, carry a purpose and message of who I am.
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