For months now, Alicia Keys has been on a no makeup campaign and has been seen attending public events fresh-faced, with not a single trace of makeup.
According to her, the decision to alter her public image came after years of insecurity and over-dependence on makeup.
In an article published in lennyletter.com, she wrote,
‘I was finally uncovering just how much I censored myself, and it scared me. Who was I anyway? Did I even know HOW to be brutally honest anymore? Who I wanted to be?
I didn’t know the answers exactly, but I desperately wanted to.’
‘In one song I wrote, called “When a Girl Can’t Be Herself,” it says,’
‘In the morning from the minute that I wake up / What if I don’t want to put on all that makeup / Who says I must conceal what I’m made of / Maybe all this Maybelline is covering my self-esteem.’
‘No disrespect to Maybelline, the word just worked after the maybe. But the truth is … I was really starting to feel like that — that, as I am, I was not good enough for the world to see.’
‘This started manifesting on many levels, and it was not healthy.’
‘Every time I left the house, I would be worried if I didn’t put on makeup: What if someone wanted a picture?? What if they POSTED it??? These were the insecure, superficial, but honest thoughts I was thinking. And all of it, one way or another, was based too much on what other people thought of me.’
‘I found my way to meditation, and I started focusing on clarity and a deeper knowing of myself. I focused on cultivating strength and conviction and put a practice in place to learn more about the real me.’
‘It wasn’t until I walked into one of my first shoots for my new album recently that the issue was front and center again. I’d just come from the gym, had a scarf under my baseball cap, and the beautiful photographer Paola (never met a Paola I didn’t like) said, “I have to shoot you right now, like this! The music is raw and real, and these photos have to be too!”
‘I was shocked. Instantly, I became a bit nervous and slightly uncomfortable. My face was totally raw. I had on a sweatshirt! As far as I was concerned, this was my quick run-to-the-shoot-so-I-can-get-ready look, not the actual photo-shoot look. So I asked her, “Now?! Like right now? I want to be real, but this might be too real!!”
‘And that was it. She started to shoot me.’
She has since kept true to her decision and her most recent bare-faced sighting was Sunday’s VMAs, which came with mixed reactions.
What do you think? Should she stick with the look or nah?
Vote below.
