Wearing makeup should not make you feel more confident. Being confident in your own skin by showing off your natural beauty, that should give you confidence.

You are beautiful with or without makeup

It is important to me to shine a light on defying the standard of beauty that says we must wear makeup daily in order to look and feel beautiful. There are so many quotes and saying that women hear daily that make us feel like we are more beautiful with makeup on. 

Wake up and makeup. Quotes like these are so toxic for how women see themselves and LADYHOOD journey is creating a movement to help women truly love themselves. (To read more of these beauty-shaming quotes, check out my post Bullshit Beauty Quotes)

My Makeup Addiction

It happened to me when I was in high school. From ninth to twelfth grade, I wore makeup every day. On the days that I spent in the house with no where to go, I noticed a change in the way I saw myself without makeup. When I was not wearing mascara, lip stick and eye shadow, I would look into the mirror and only negative thoughts would come to my mind. My self-talk was nothing but negative.

I became too dependent on wearing it.

I started feeling like my natural face was not enough. I felt like I needed something to, make me look more awake, give me life, or enhance my natural beauty. By wearing makeup every day, it was so easy for me to develop this bad habit. By wearing makeup everyday, I and many other women develop an addiction to it without even realizing it.

Amy Robb, a 24-year-old Irish Blogger who graduated with a degree in psychology shared her story with being addicted to wearing makeup with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on their youtube channel, This Morning, My Makeup Addiction Led to Me Being Sectioned. 

“I felt so unworthy and disgusting without it, like, I would have avoided mirrors without makeup on.” -Amy Robb 

Amy is a survivor, she is a leader and an strong woman for being so transparent. Sharing your truth is not always easy and by speaking publicly about her addiction to makeup and her struggles with anorexia, depression, and having suicidal thoughts, Amy is a inspiration to women and girls. There are many stories like Amy’s but we need more advocates like her, to show women and teenage girls that there is more to life than  beauty. 

#NoMakeupMondays Purpose

The purpose of this challenge is to shine a light on makeup addiction and for all women to feel beautiful with or without wearing makeup. 

LADYHOOD journey advocates for women empowerment and anti-beauty standards, believing that women of every shade, race, sexual orientation, age, religion, socioeconomic class, and culture should feel that they are naturally beautiful.

I want every woman to incorporate self-love love in their beauty regimen and learn to value their natural beauty.

This challenge seeks to uplift, motivate, strengthen, and give self-confidence to women and girls through active self-love, by taking highlighting natural beauty for one day of the week. Hopefully, this can help women to love their wrinkles, laugh lines, blemishes, bumps, and scars, and to overall defy popular cultures’ definition of flaws and beauty. 

How To Participate

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Every Monday, you can participate in this challenge by not wearing makeup. No mascara, eye-shadow, lip stick, contour, blush, bronzer, foundation, or eye liner; anything that has a color or tint to it …

Here are the rules:

1. Post on a selfie on social media wearing no makeup
2. Using the hashtag #nomakeupmondays 
3. TAG ME 

@theheartadvocate on Instagram

@ladyhoodjourney on Facebook

Let your natural beauty shine, you were born beautiful! Love Yourself! You are beautiful with or without makeup!