I have always been embarrassed of my skin. It seemed there was never a time when I didn't have at least one pimple on my face. There were parts that were oily and other patches of dryness. It was almost impossible to find a foundation that would cover my face properly. It doesn't help that I've never been great at makeup. However, that didn't stop me from always trying to hide my face under layers of the stuff to give the effect of semi "perfect" skin. A few months ago, this all changed for me.

One day while getting ready, I was complaining in the bathroom about how my foundation was not covering my face the right way. It would slide off the oily parts and stick weird to the patchy dry parts. It looked awful. I spent hours on YouTube watching countless beauty gurus explain their foundation routine. My husband (who always tells me I'm beautiful no matter what) mentioned something interesting. He told me I should just let my skin breathe for a bit.

I immediately panicked thinking, how in the world can I do that? I'll have to go in public with patchy red skin with the possibility of a pimple? It's impossible! I have to cover my face!

After thinking about it a little bit more, I decided to take the challenge. Layering foundation on my face didn't seem to help anything no matter how well I cleaned up at night and in the morning. So, I decided to give foundation a break. I bought a natural face wash that had vitamins essential for healing skin, a better natural face lotion, and a night time toner.

The first few days were hard. To be honest, I felt ugly. But the fact that being bare skinned made me feel ugly really bothered me and motivated me to keep with it. With each day it got easier. My face has never felt better. My complexion has gotten pretty even, my dry patches have started to disappear, and I even started to recognize the row of freckles draped across the bridge of my nose.

The other day I decided to put foundation on because I was going somewhere fancy. It felt heavy and awkward. All I wanted to do was wash it off. By the time I got home: pimple. So, I washed my face and didn't wear makeup the next day.

At first, my goal was to revive my skin to the point of perfection so that I never had to wear foundation again. Now, my goal has changed.

My current goal is to learn to love my skin and to feel comfortable in it. I should never feel ugly without makeup. Don't get me wrong, I think makeup is fun and I will probably never stop wearing it completely. But I will never again make the mistake of feeling like I have to wear makeup to be beautiful.