Beauty Tips

How Becoming a Beauty Editor Taught Me to Embrace My Makeup-Free Face

Who would've thought going makeup-less could make me feel prettier?

by Rebecca Norris | COMMENT

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How That One Assignment and Those 10 Words Changed My Life After I'd hit send on my final write-up for Women's Health, I told my bosses why I had looked like "something was off" for the prior two weeks. And in that moment, and many after where I'd told other men and women, boys and girls, what I had done in the name of journalism, I made a choice that I was going to try my hardest to no longer give society the power to make me feel bad about my personal beauty choices. It just no longer served me.

I didn't like that guys were subject to different standards and I especially didn't like that I was being called brave for going makeup-free. Moving to NYC by myself on a budget when I didn't know anybody, that was brave. Pushing myself to grow past emotional trauma, that was brave. Hell, walking down a hallway in the dark, for me, that's brave. But, going a day without makeup? Nope, not brave. So from that point on, I chose to never feel obligated to wear it again. Not to the grocery store or to work; not out to the bar or to visit my friends from home after being gone for months. Instead of feeling like I needed to wear makeup, I finally learned what it was like to prime and set only when I felt like it. And, as silly as it may seem, that was liberating.

Image courtesy Rebecca Norris

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