Since the dawn of the heavy bottom eyeliner in my 7th grade days, I have been quite a fan of the magic that is make up. While not truly skilled in the art myself, I always admired the way a person could create a character or set the mood with the right pallet and a good set of tools. However, my make up routine has remained fairly basic and unchanged since I mastered the 5-minute-face in which I utilize just an eye brow pencil and mascara. It’s the fast and goof-proof look I need to work through my insanely busy days.

This past week, I put vulnerability aside and went make up free for 7 days. This was not my intention at first, but between work and school I had so much to accomplish, that looks were low on the priority list. After 2 days my skin felt so fresh and glowingly healthy that I just decided to go the rest of the week without a drop of make up.

As I mentioned, I wear very little make up to begin with, just mascara and fill out my brows with a trace of chapstick on my lips. I like it simple. But with nothing to cover my blonde lashes and bring color to a pale face, I felt as though in that moment, I might as well have been walking around completely naked. That’s how I felt, at least.

While I was aware that my new natural look changed the way I felt about myself, I noticed small changes in the way others noticed me as well.

Were people being nicer to me? Maybe it’s because I look nicer or younger? I thought to myself.

It was odd. I felt myself smiling much more. I smiled because that was the beauty of my face; a happy person is a beautiful person so I smiled all the time and I felt better. My soul felt better. I wasn’t on the same scale of beauty as everyone else so I felt no pressure to compare myself. I was just me. That is honest beauty and what is honest, is true.

On the last Saturday of my au naturel experiment, a woman approached me at my work. I had never met her before but regardless, she put her hand on my arm and looked me square in the face. A pair of piercing blue orbs spliced with bright green streaks peered deep into my own blue eyes. She looked at me with such intensity and ferocious honesty when she parted her thin, wrinkled lips and croaked with almost motherly concern, “You are so beautiful. You are truly beautiful.” She held on to my arm and searched deeper into my eyes, searching for a confirmation of my understanding of her words. The tension between our interlocked eyes was mounting. I had no idea what to say because before that instance I did not feel this true beauty that she pinned on me. I had not felt beautiful without make up as my defense. I was using it to defend my image as a beautiful person. The fragile woman before me, crinkled skin, dark thick hair spilling over her shoulders digging through my soul with her electric blue-green eyes was changing the way I thought about everything.

It didn’t happen at once. After thanking her immensely with a mouthful of giggles, I didn’t simply walk away from her, epiphanized with a fabulous new view on life. A few days of wondering about the peculiarity of my encounter with the aged women brought me here to my keyboard where I meet you at your screen. Writing this article has been a revelational experience. As I wrote the words you just read I felt an overwhelming sensation of introspection and naked honesty where I pitted the value of expectational beauty against the power of what is true and natural.

Makeup should be a tool of self expression not self defense. All I’m saying is come as you are and never feel obligated to defend yourself for just being you.