Embracing vs. Hiding Natural Beauty
I have a talented best friend named Gaby who used me as a model for her photography project (where these pictures are from) and I used her project as inspiration for this post! Love ya, Gabs :)
High school insecurities
In high school, there were maybe three days all together that I didn't wear a full face of makeup. I wore makeup to the endless hours of rehearsals, workouts, and even when I was sick and didn't feel like looking "put together." Because I grew up performing, I started wearing makeup at a young age but I didn't consistently wear it until high school. While makeup has become like a form of meditation for me, it served as a comfort blanket for many years.During high school, along with always wearing makeup, I always wore thoughtfully put together outfits. No sweatpants. No leggings. I'm talking a full outfit–accessories and all. People who went to school with me knew me as "the girl who always dresses up." Although I do enjoy fashion and the creativity that comes with "dressing up"–I started to be ashamed of what I looked like without the makeup and nice clothes.
These insecurities don't just disappear
Fast forward to college and I quickly had to adjust to people seeing me without makeup because I live in residence halls AKA you see people at their best, worst, and every point in between. Just because I started dressing down to class and "not caring" what I looked like without makeup, doesn't mean I feel any less insecure.I am slowly but surely becoming more familiar and seeing the beauty in my natural features. My eyes may not "pop" as much without eyeliner, and my skin might have some hyper pigmentation but not wearing makeup doesn't get rid of my smile or the sparkle in my eyes when I talk about something I love or my big brown eyes. There's no amount of makeup or nice clothing that can get rid of the most important parts of myself like my compassion or independent nature or how I love to listen and give advice.Embracing my natural features is becoming easier and I am wearing less makeup day to day but I'm not completely leaving makeup. I love dressing up and doing a full face of makeup and sitting down and doing my makeup is like meditation for me. I have started using makeup as something to enhance my natural beauty instead of hide it. Intentions are everything–just like with social media use or working out everyday.
There are two key things that I have learned in this journey of embracing natural beauty:
1. No one cares what you look like.
Honestly, if they do, they aren't people you want in your life. Think about all of the people in your life; is there any person that you're friends with because "they are pretty"?! Sure, you might gravitate towards people with a similar fashion sense as you or think their makeup always looks #onfleek but most likely that's not all. True friends are friends with you regardless of what you look like. In regards to dating, physical attraction is important but do you really want to date someone who only likes you when you're dressed to the nines with layers of foundation on? That's exhausting.
2. Everyone has insecurities. Learning to embrace and accept them is admirable.
I am not sure I have ever met someone who doesn't have at least one insecurity about their appearance or even their personality. We all have things we don't love. For me, it's the dark circles under my eyes (genetics) and having bigger pores on my face. No matter how much I try and cover them up, they still are there. Makeup only masks them. By focusing on the things you are insecure, you forget about the things that you love about yourself. Try shifting focus to highlighting what you love and just accept that life isn't perfect and there's more important things to worry about than the size of your pores or pigmentation of your skin.
In Conclusion
Before I go, I will leave you with a metaphor that I like to thing about whenever I am focusing a little too much on my physical appearance and worrying about what people think about me.
Think about a time when you are shopping with your best friend. You all go through the mall and buy buy buy. You come home and lay everything out to compare what everyone got. What are the odds that the both of you get exactly the same clothes? Same pants, shirts, sweaters, colors, styles, etc. It's a pretty small chance. You find certain clothes cuter than your best friend. You all have different tastes and you see different things in a different light.
Think about that the next time you are hyper-focused on your appearance. While I am not advocating for physical appearance to be the most important thing in life, we do live in a society that puts physical appearance on a pedestal so it is hard to completely ignore.
"The way you look should be the least interesting thing about yourself."
Let's just look at relationships (because people who aren't friends with someone because of their looks are not the kind of people any of us need/want in our lives)–when someone isn't attracted to you, it isn't necessarily saying something is wrong with YOUR appearance. It's just saying that that person didn't find you attractive. Just like a sweater in a store that your friend loves but you think is god awful... someone, somewhere will see the true beauty. Wouldn't life be so much harder and more competitive if everyone found everyone attractive?! Talk about the Hunger Games in real life!So that's all for now. My relationship with embracing my natural beauty is ever changing but I am happy to be in the body that I am. I have begun loving and cherishing this body and highlighting those things I love rather than masking what I don't like.